Cigarette Daydream
by aphtrashbin
Summary: The thing with someone who's drowning is that sometimes when you're just trying to help and they're trying their best to survive, you get pushed under in exchange. Jesse's aint never been a good swimmer- and he's even worse at talking about his feelings- but lord above knows he'd try anything if he thought it might help Gabriel. McReyes, not long before the zurich explosion.
1. Chapter 1

Unfortunate as it was to be awake, there was something hypnotic about the sound of a ceiling fan, and startling when it stops out of nowhere. Certainly, he'd been asleep- for once-, but Jesse McCree was always jumpy, and even moreso now. Keep expecting his boogeyman to appear out of nowhere and punish him or somethin like that. He rubbed his face, and stood to go wash his face and piss, his face gaunt, looking like he was some sort of raccoon sans tail.

After usin the restroom, he went over to the mirror and rubbed his face, using his thumbs to rub at the darkened circles beneath his eyes, and washed his face off a bit in the mirror, before he absently spotted something in his hair, and he took a closer look, turning on the shitty fluorescent lights in the bathroom to look and stare in disbelief.

He was staring, because that was the first grey hair he'd found in his hair- or, also known as, _another_ cause to fucking drink. Because, what the _shit_? Goddamn, he was barely fucking past 30 and here he is, gettin' grey's like fuckin' Morrison? It was perhaps a sign of a larger problem, but Lord God above knew that getting Jesse McCree to admit he had a problem- or a few- was too much trouble to bother with.

And so, he stared at it absently a little bit longer, but just shrugged and went with it, leaning away from the mirror. If life's gonna throw him another curveball, ain't his place to not react like he usually does. There wasn't a fuckin 'usual' anymore, anyways. Not anymore.

Jesse removed his makeshift flask from his hip, an emptied out flash bang, and enjoyed vaguely warm bourbon- warmed from where he'd slept on top of it- at 7 in the morning. It's five o' clock somewhere, and high noon somewhere else. _Time is an illusion_ , he heard Reyes saying out of irritation with McCree in his head, echoing as well as it could, given the cotton stuffed up in his head. He set the flask down on the countertop of his ramshackle quarter's bathroom, shaking his head as he tugged out the grey hair. His Pa hadn't gone grey until 45, what the shit was this?

This time, Angela's voice spoke from the back of his head, warning him about his smoking habits coming back to haunt him. He promptly picked the flask back up and downed another warm gulp. He'd been smokin' since before he could drive. That aint a habit no one's gonna be able to break, so why bother?

And really, it wasn't nothing a cigar and a bottle of hair dye wouldn't fix. N' all else failing, he's sure the doc can get him patched up anyway. Angie might not approve of his vices, but damn if she didn't do a decent job keepin' him in line elsewhere.

He looked down at his left side problem in its sling though, and he had to down another burning sip of alcohol. Nothing like warm bourbon first thing in the morning to remind him that he's living the dream, right?

As he placed the flask back on his belt, he took out a cigar and lit it, breathing in the smoke. As he watched the glow of the television out of the corner of his eye, he found himself thinking that Angela might have her work cut out for her already.

XXXXX

Ever since the Null Sector uprising in London, things had been damn crazy around base. Reyes and Morrison were under some kinda serious investigation now, and Petras was practically frothing at the mouth in preparation of fucking Jack and Gabe over. Now granted, they were awfully handsome but really, if it was Jesse doing it he'd be a bit more polite about telling them to bend over and take it. Morrison in particular, because the man had always seemed a fair bit shier in terms of real intimacy. He was no stranger to shoutin' out orders, but as one of the few who attended their lil' get-togethers, he knew full well its remarkably difficult to get him to open up in general, let alone to that sorta thing.

Reyes, well, that had become an _entirely_ different thing.

And Jesse was rolling in right on time.

"McCree." Reyes' voice was snappy, his brown eyes staring hard, like miles of empty desert, at him accusingly- accusing him of somethin' terrible, but really it was deserved on some level. He knew he reeked of bourbon, but hell, if its high noon somewhere in the world, then it was also 5 o' clock somewhere _else_ in the world. "Why are you drinking? It's not even eight yet."

He blew out a bit of smoke, and gave a lazy grin. "Darlin', it was either bourbon or pain pills, and you know which one of those vices I'm functional on." Holding up his sling a bit before he winced. "N' don't you dare send me back to quarters. I know ya need some help. _Senior_ Blackwatch agent McCree, reporting for duty."

There was something like _pain_ , or guilt like somethin' awful, in Gabe's eyes for a heartbeat as he eyed his stump of an arm, before it was covered up quickly with a scoff, looking away. "You know you have another 2 weeks- at _least_ \- of leave, McCree. The fuck are you doing here?" He gave Jesse another, slightly incredulous once over.

"Awh, hun," Jesse whined, going over to his desk and sitting in the chair backwards with his chin resting up on top of the back of it. "C'mon babe, I'm gettin' stir crazy. Y'all know Angie assigns too much leave in case we use it for other unofficial things."

"She doesn't assign whole months for pseudo vacations McCree." He quickly tossed back his reply, squinting at him. "You should be in bed. Sober up, take your pills, and then go to _sleep_. You know you need the rest with...everything thats going on." He rolled his eyes. "Stubborn man." And yet, something there had softened slightly.

"I don't like the way the pills make me feel, sir." He admitted quietly, sighing. "At least lemme help you with the paperwork monster m' sure Petras has been glad to feed and raise to Godzilla sized proportions." He pointed with a thumb to where it had started piling up on the floor, and Gabriel barely hid the look of irritation he had when Jesse mentioned Petras' name, before the rest of what he'd said had registered.

"You, offering to do paperwork?" At this, Gabe smiled, and then even gave a small chuckle. "You must be getting really bad. Fine, take some of the stack, and sit over here Jesse." He offered with an affectionate, if exasperated head shake.

It wasn't much, and it definitely wasn't what Jesse had hoped for, but it was something, and so he eagerly parked his ass in Gabe's spare chair and helped him to start to make a dent in the paperwork monster. But that was almost a metaphor- allegory; Reyes' voice in his head reminded him with amused admonishment for getting the literary term wrong, an echo of times gone by- for the 'thing' that he and Reyes had become.

Now, Jesse McCree was not the kinda person who would sit ya down and ask in a careful voice, _what are we_. Jesse McCree was the kinda fella who would some day go down in history as a man with a big ego, a bigger dick, and a sex drive the size of the damn sun. At least, that was somewhat how Angie put it.

And when Gabriel Reyes had come to him about a month before the Uprising and wrapped his arms around him tight and told him to fuck him so hard he couldn't think about what was wrong, far be it from him to turn him down. Matter of fact- he'd secretly been fantasizing about the two of them getting together for at least 10 years.

But here they were, half a year after that and not much to show for it 'sides some damn good sex and a stink eye from Morrison every now and again that he _said_ was from getting him in trouble by being in London completely unauthorized, and yet, it was the kinda look that he knew only could come from sleeping with his ex. And the way that it came off was that it was almost somethin' more. Something to rival the 20 years Jack and Gabe had spent together.

But whatever they had between them wasn't much, and definitely _not_ what Jesse had hoped for. But it was _something_. And therefore, he threw himself at Reyes and tried to shoulder some of his burden.

Perhaps at his own expense even. But see if you could get him to admit that aloud. Now that'd be a new Jesse McCree challenge all its own.

Regardless, Jesse came over to him and gently kissed his cheek as he picked up a stack of paperwork to take from Gabriel, and got a smile in return, before Gabriel gently cupped his cheek and brought him into a proper kiss.

"Thank you," he murmured, and it felt like all was right in the world.

XXXXX

 _They'd been visiting Gabriel's sister in California to cool off a bit after Blackwatch was suspended._ _"Doesn't the UN know that that complaint from the Japanese government was placed originally by the Yakuza?"_ _He asked, lazily letting his cigarette smoke drift in the faint wind._

 _The Reyes' family vacation house was a fuckin' beach house down in San Diego, and it was then more than ever that McCree felt something terribly domestic between him and Gabe because it was just them, his sister Isabel, her husband, and their boy._

 _A loud scoff, and Gabe rolled his eyes._ _"They don't care where the complaint came from, Jesse, they know we exist now and the public demands answers."_ _He spat on the floor._ _"And I can't even go to them and explain it._ _My death from the public eye has finally come back to haunt us._ _And God knows that cornfucker Morrison won't be able to smooth this one over."_

 _Silence reigned, and Jesse rubbed his eyes. "Well, reckon he'll try?" He asked carefully, with a raised brow._

 _Gabe gave a short, terse nod. "Yeah, he'll try. But he prolly won't succeed. Wasn't ever good at this part of things- he's good when he's in his element. Now, taking credit for someone else's work, that he's good at, that's definitely, unquestionably in his element."_

 _Jesse threw him a pointed look._ _"Someone who aint over his ex yet says what?"_

 _Gabriel's brown eyes were hardened and unimpressed, like the deep color of wood in the winter, standing firm against the storm._ _"Absolutely mature of you, McCree._ _Jack and I parted on mutual terms._ _We both knew it was coming for a long time, and when it happened it was completely necessary. Any comments I make now have nothing to do with our break up."_

 _"And_ ** _that's_** _mature?"_ _Jesse rolled his eyes._ _"We're both old enough now to know even if things were entirely mutually exclusive in ending it, ya still can have some bitterness in you._ _And you know? That's fine._ _We're old enough to say that even if we're bitter about things ending, you can still have something, right?_ _Be friends, be happy._ _All that jazz. You just gotta learn to let some of it go."_

 _Reyes was looking at him funny then, and Jesse had to cough suddenly, the gaze too much, and Gabriel had to point up to break the silence._ _"Hey, look." He grinned at Jesse, and Jesse followed his fingertips with his eyes to see a few people heading up to go cliffdiving._ _"You ever do that?"_

 _"Didn't grow up on the beach, bossman."_ _Jesse pointed out, shrugging._ _"Now, if we wanna talk about climbing up shit, I can do that._ _Pa always said Ma would roll in her grave if she saw me doin' it, but never stopped me. I was a right mountain goat, er, somethin' like it."_

 _Gabriel laughed, hard and shaking some in the sand, before he stood up, his brown eyes turned amber in the sunset._ _"Its much easier to go with gravity than the reverse._ _C'mon cowboy._ _Its fun."_

 _"Damn Gabe, my Pa always asked if my friends jumped off a bridge, would I follow."_ _Jesse threw back, and there was more laughter as Gabriel's hand wrapped tight around his own._

 _"It's not a bridge, it's a cliff._ _Just don't bellyflop and you'll be fine."_ _He clarified with a smirk and a roll of his eyes._

 _Neither of them said a damn thing when Jesse squeezed back and they walked hand and hand up to the cliffs._

 _And at the top of the cliff, staring down at the Pacific Ocean, they jumped, the deep blue sea a gaping abyss in front of them, a known unknown._

XXXXX

After much bitching at Angie for something productive to do, given that his vacation time was actually nil, considering he was trapped on this damn base, under investigation for why he was in London, McCree was finally cleared for menial labor. And he still had to go cook her a proper meal (or 10) in thanks. Now see, the woman was an absolute god send when it came to medicine, and the good lord above knew that she couldn't so much as follow a box recipe for water without burning something.

In her defense, of course, she'd grown up getting takeout meals from the state as she went through college at 12-16, and had entered medical school at 17. And before that, well, her folks ain't never shown her the way around the kitchen. That was a far more legitimate reason than Genji's reason for mooching off of McCree's cooking- that he'd grown up with butlers and maids to do that sort of thing for him.

And as he was stacking boxes and helping move documents for the internal investigation in a poorly disguised to show he's a team player and suck up to Petras some, he couldn't find it within himself to really dislike the work. It wasn't much, but it means that he had a fuckin' reason to get up and shower and be _productive_ and not get completely hammered first thing in the morning. And that, well, that was better than nothin. Ana's voice was in the back of his mind, feeding into the feeling that he needs to raise his standards for himself some up from, "better than nothing."

And speaking of Ana...

"McCree! What on earth are you doing out of bed?" She came over, absolutely exasperated.

"Ma'am, I asked Angela for something to do, and something in particular that will help with the ass kissing y'all have to give Petras." He said, resting his remaining arm against the stack of boxes he was moving.

She frowned, but sighed. "If Angela allows it, then I cannot say anything against it. I was on my way to see her myself- I'm also taking some time to catch up on office work, but that's because of my leave from field work.

"Ah. Ramadan Mubarak, Ana." He remembered absently, and she gave a tired smile. "When did it start?"

"It's almost over, McCree," She raised an eyebrow and smiled in some affection, even as he balked at learning he'd practically missed it. "I'm impressed you remembered, though- yes, it started the 4th of October this year. Remember, it's a lunar calendar McCree."

"I try my best ma'am, course I do- I always try to be respectful." He grinned, and she waved a hand at him, shaking her head in amusement with a vague whisper of _such a charmer_. "It started 2 weeks later last time. Fareeha coming 'round for Eid?"

"She is not," Ana admitted quietly. "She's getting a job with Helix Security right now- currently she's in Nigeria. She's very upset with me for Overwatch's refusal to hire her, but I hope in this time she will come to understand my decision." She looked at her hands. "But this is not the life I want for her. After Amelie and Gerard, and then now, with all of us under international criminal investigation...this is something that could ruin her career, if not outright kill her for her connection to me."

"Mmm," he nodded slowly, thinking over how to respond. "Kids can be hard, I reckon. My Pa always told me I'd be somethin' special." He grinned, the expression self-deprecating. "N' where m' I now? After being a gang member for several years, I'm now bein' court marshaled."

Ana waved a hand in disagreement, huffing. "Shush." She ordered, shaking her head. "We're all in that boat. Come to Iftar tonight, its going to be a meeting with all of us. Regardless of everything, we're family, and I will take care of my own."

"Who all's coming?" He asked in a somewhat skeptical voice.

"Gabriel, Jack, Reinhardt, Torbjörn, Angela, and myself are all going to be there- ideally, you'd be there as well." She informed with a smile. "Winston and Tracer might also drop in, and if we're truly lucky, so will Genji."

He had to take a moment and think about that, and she lightly smacked his head. "No, you will come. I know you will. Genji won't stay for long even if he does make an appearance. And I know you like Tracer, at least." She gave him a hard look, a stern look that reminded him of how his Pa would come along and tell him to come eat, not if he would come eat.

He smiled at her, if somewhat tiredly, because he knew her intentions were good, and he knew it was definitely good for him to get out and actually talk to people.

"What time, Ana?" He asked with an eyebrow raise.

"Ah." She hummed. "Come around 21 hundred hours, McCree."

"So late!" He exclaimed, his eyebrows raised because that meant the poor woman wasn't eating or drinking until 9 at night. "Good lord. And Suhor is... god, tryn'ta remember..."

"It's around 3 am." She admitted with a shrug. "I always have to wean myself off of coffee before it, otherwise I would become unbearable." She sighed. "That, and cigarettes. I am eternally grateful, alhamdulilah, that I broke that vice many years ago. And that the UN grants me time off every month so that I do not have to fight during the month."

"I'll definitely join you all tonight. Has the rookie ever broke your fast with you?" He confirmed without another thought, before having to ask.

She softened, and shook her head. "No, she hasn't! Ah, it will be interesting." She gave a sly smile. "Thank you for reminding me, I'll have to wear my traditional dress... I'll culture our Brit yet." She winked, and waved as she decided to finish the conversation. "I will see you later, Jesse. Please take care of yourself."

XXXXX

It was over a cup of juice that Ana had apparently brought from Cairo the last time she'd visited that the new and old members of Overwatch were able to refamiliarize themselves with each other again.

"McCree! You look better!" Tracer exclaimed when she saw him, and Angela rolled her eyes and whispered something to Winston, inevitably getting a snort from him. Probably about how it was against his every single action to be looking better.

"Yep, Doc patched me up real nice." He agreed with his trademarked and copyrighted easy smile, grabbing three dates to follow Ana's usual advice, and she looked pleased as he then helped himself to one of the sweets he never remembered the name of as she enjoyed her soup.

"Glad to see you around." Jack admitted with a huff, eating some of her soup with her. "Watching Gabriel pace has been a game with a growing following in the base." There was a round of laughter that went around the table, and Gabriel was clearly slightly embarrassed to get called out like that by his ex.

"Speaking of games." Ana smirked, holding up her decks of cards, and Torbjörn cheered at the sight of them.

"Are we going to play the fun version this time?" He smirked, and Reinhardt shook his head in amusement.

"Please, we have the rookie. We play the tame version."

Tracer was quick to voice her displeasure, but Ana was already passing out the phase 10 cards and Jesse was chuckling as he threw her a vaguely amused smirk.

"Ya Ana, the _Fun_ version? Haraam," He sipped his tea quietly as she belted out a fast laugh, and Lena made a confused noise, and Jack quietly explained that alcohol might be involved in the fun version of the game, and it was forbidden in Islam, even though occasionally there were moments Ana might not always be a very strict practicing Muslim.

"The more appropriate version is just a game we play around here to keep getting to know each other. It's hard to play, but we always wind up learning new things!" Reinhardt explained cheerfully. "And we now have you and Winston playing! Two newbies who will be having to explain much of themselves if we call them out as not doing too well." He winked.

"I'm gonna have a hard time with this." He admitted. "Only have one hand. Darlin', mind if I join your team?" He gave Gabriel a knowing smile, and Ana and Jack both pretended to praise the lord above as Gabriel laughed and kissed him when he sat on his lap.

"You're answering, babe." Gabriel added easily, and McCree shrugged as he settled, handing his cards to Angela so that Ana could sit down and continue drinking water to rehydrate.

Winston looked confused. "Is Agent McCree dating Commander Reyes?" He asked, looking between them, and then trying to process that. "Isn't that a breach in…well, protocol? Especially since they're in the same unit."

"Winston, good question, but fraternizing ain't really against protocol. Iffin the UN ever had other ideas, they woulda had to take it up with Jack and Gabriel, long before I ever got into the picture." McCree gave a lazy smile. "Gabe n' I ain't never have a relationship that was usual. _This all_ is a more recent development, but the good lord above knows that its safe, sane, and consensual, and the current group message title isn't, 'Fuck the UN,' for nothin."

Ana snapped her fingers in approval, and Jack had to look away some as Gabriel and him kissed, but things seemed easy enough as light laughter went around their circle of friends, and Torbjörn gossiped away as Angela subtly shot him a look for saying that in front of their Strike Commander, but he and Jack had come to an understanding over the years.

Their card game was actually very fun, and Gabriel wasn't a bad hand at cards, but Ana was a certified card shark, and Lena was surprisingly good as well. Over a cup of tea that McCree had none too subtly spiked, he was made to answer the question of how his parents would view him now.

Jesse sat up some on Gabriel's lap, and huffed. "Well, Luis DiAngelo McCree was a good man, and a good father. He'd prolly be wondering how the hell his boy is gonna be court-martialed for doing the one definitively good thing in his entire damn "adult" life."

"You were not an _adult,_ " Ana frowned in no small amount of disagreement when he spoke of his time as Deadlock as though he were an adult.

"Hey, listen, I ain't ever got what was your deal is with this, though. Being entirely frank, I'd been on my own, paid for all my damn food and stolen the things I couldn't buy. Which was how I'd been taken by Deadlock to begin with. And honestly, the only thing I do differently in Overwatch is pay fuckin' taxes on pay the shit I buy, and that's offensive to my very sensibilities." Jesse harrumphed as he sat up completely straight, a picture of imperial grace, before he had to snort and shrug some.

Ana continues to look incredibly unimpressed even as there was laughter all around the table at his response. He'd always been a good funnyman. Good at making light of the things in life that were shitty. Letting other people laugh at his pain so they wouldn't really get worried about him- it was his speciality.

In the brief moment that he'd zoned out and sipped his spiked drink, he had missed something, because Gabriel was nudging him quietly.

"Mmm?" He looked up, focusing again on Tracer.

"What, exactly is the Jesse McCree challenge?" She asked, a smile on her face- genuine and everything. He could hardly understand how she managed to remain so bright and happy. "I heard about it from Genji, but he didn't really give me a straight answer."

"Awh, hell. That's easy. So, see, when I first joined." He began, and Gabriel laughed, covering his face as he struggled to stop and say, _nooooo babe,_ before Jesse embarrassed himself. "I was able to beat him in unarmed one to one. I was this skinny ass, weak, half-starved 17 year old, up against the big bad war hero, and his team, and I won."

Gabriel laughed. "He's saying that he was weak, but we underestimated him because he was so skinny. Thought he was just some punk, and then he's able to get a gun to my head, _my_ head, as in, me, the super soldier, before my team was able to subdue him. It was quite the surprise, and I knew that he had a lot of untapped potential. Ever since then, though, we like to set up the challenge so that new recruits to Blackwatch- if they can get a gun to my head, they can get out of 2 weeks of basic."

Gabriel gently smooched him, and smiled. "However, only Jesse's been able to repeat it. He's gotten even better at it, though."

"Awh, Darlin." He put his hand over his heart as something melted, and Jack rolled his eyes some as he mumbled something about how it was only just because they were dating.

"Hey, you take that back!" Gabriel defended in faux outrage. "We dated, Pretty Boy, and you didn't ever once succeed in the challenge!"

There was an argument, and Gabriel wholeheartedly supported Jesse and his abilities over Morrison, watching as Ana stepped in and he joked that she always took his side, and then there was a low blow that Gabriel quickly shot back a fast, "Stop it, Strike Commander Pettison."

There was just something so easy about this, even though Jesse wasn't necessarily participating in the conversation, it just all felt warm, and Jesse felt like he was important, that he mattered, even when Gabriel was interacting with Jack. There was something absolutely magnetic about him, so absolutely warm and caring and truly, _everything._ He was the ideal, everything Jesse had ever wanted.

And that's hardly scratchin' the surface as to why Jesse loved Gabriel.

He watched with no small amount of affection towards Gabriel as he gave Morrison a brutal noogie- some much needed tension being released with it, before he pulled the strike commander coat off and up over his head after getting the jump on him, Tracer and the others all laughing and encouraging the playful fight.

He was laughing some kinda way as Gabriel gave him a meaningful look, catching his gaze and suddenly making him realize what the fuck was going on his head.

Full stop.

 _Love?_

Who in the _fuck_ authorized that gay nonsense?


	2. Chapter 2

"What the fuck are you doing, McCree?" Genji's robotic voice came in, and his red eyes glowed through the pleasant haze of his drunkenness and that only served to irritate the problem.

"First of all, what the fuck kinda a question is that? Listening to Pat Benatar on full blast at 2am is a goddamn **mood** , okay," Jesse corrected with no small amount of disdain, a mostly empty glass of bourbon in his hand, thrusting it and pointing one finger accusingly at Genji. "Heartbreaker is a fuckin' classic. Don't you come at me like that."

Jesse ain't quite sure if he can actually call Genji a friend, but he's something like one as he comes in and plucks the flask up off the floor with a noise of disgust. "Really cowboy, this a sign you've been drinking on the job?" He asked pointedly, and Jesse squinted as he processed that.

"Hey, hey now." He sat up some, while Genji turned off his music and made him listen to the sound of his own thoughts again. Damn him. Damn him for making him address those _feelings_. He didn't even know how to fucking put them! They were feelings and they were feelings aside from sexual desire and that was fucking weird! The fuck was he supposed to do about them?

"I'm listening." Genji stood there, imperial and incredibly unimpressed for a good long moment as Jesse tried to come up with some kinda coherent response, and then scoffed and walked off, leaving Jesse sprawled on the floor trashed out of his mind, having to think about with a massive pit in his stomach about how he _loved_ someone.

Jesse McCree was made for a lot of things, destruction, death, theft, according to the public right now and the UN and just like how Deadlock had viewed a lil 13 year old who was small enough to get places the others couldn't and was also damn confident about what he'd done, because he'd needed to be if he wanted to survive.

But love? Naw. He wasn't that kinda squishy, mushy person. Sex, yes, sex he was down for now and forever, good form of stress relief so long it was on his terms and no one gets hurt by the outcome. But _love_ , that was unfamiliar territory left best, in his mind, to Fareeha's and his movies when the girl had been a girl. Or hell, even to Jack and Gabe. That had been love. But what he had for Gabe? Naw. He knew better than to go for something like that. He wasn't even fucking good at fucking the same person or cuddling. And fuck that snag at the back of his mind thats whispering he broke both those rules of his because Gabe had asked. Fuck that. Gabe was hot, he'd be dumb not to want seconds, or thirds, or, fourths, or…hell.

He lay there on the floor, eyes glued to the ceiling as he remembered Gabe telling him to not drink so damn much. This was his fuckin' fault. His and Genji's. Making him _feel_ things that he wasn't good at and then making him _address_ them like he was some sort of functioning human being. Ridiculous.

Moments later, he reemerged from the door and was bringing Angela behind him. Maybe not moments later, but maybe McCree had been flashing in and out of consciousness. Came with the territory of drinking himself this stupid in an attempt to chase away those goddamned feelings.

"Jesse McCree." Angela's voice emanated from her entire being like a threat, and yet he still offered her the most charming smile he could manage drunk as a skunk at 2 in the morning.

"Angie." He croaked pathetically as Genji handed him a glass of water that he gulped down like a man stuck in the desert.

"Don't even bother." Genji interrupted them, from where Angela was about to undoubtedly go on a tirade about how his drinking habits weren't anywhere near healthy. "He was listening to classic rock. He's absolutely wasted."

Her eyebrows shot up into surprise from where they'd been clenched tight and about to throw _down_. "Really? Goodness, its worse than I thought." She murmured. "Help me pick him up, Genji. I need to put him on fluids."

Their jumbled walk over to Angela's clinic is absent from his mind, and as is the time after that.

All he knows is that when he woke up at fuck o' clock in the morning, he had a few Blackwatch agents just outside his room, and he decided to listen quietly.

"When's he get back?"

"Bout a month from now."

"Jesus! It's been 5 weeks already."

"Reyes can't be too happy he's lost his boy toy."

A round of snickers could be heard, and something sank from Jesse's throat to go constrict tight around his heart. He hates it too. He gets it- he was second choice, someone who's moderately attractive and therefore, a ripe candidate for sex. After dating someone like Jack Morrison, leader of Overwatch and hero of the world, how could someone like Jesse McCree ever even hope to compete?

He lay there in a fog, his mind fixating on that point. What does Gabriel see in him?

"All of you hush." Ana's sharp voice interrupted them. "It's Sahour and none of you are fasting. Out, out. Shoo. Go to bed."

A round of sheepish apologizes went around, and their footsteps echoed down the empty hall, and Ana walked in with a subtle smirk on her face.

"I know you're awake, Jesse." She announced, and he sighed.

"How the fuck didja know?" He rolled over, rubbing his eyes, and she was carrying a small lantern, lit by a candle. "A candle? What year is it, Ana?"

She rolled her eyes, and came into his room, setting the lantern down on Angela's bedside workspace, stretching as she did so. "I'm well aware that no one truly carries these anymore, but the tradition is said to have come from Egypt. I bought this one last weekend. If I do not try to preserve my culture, what will happen to it?" She tapped the multicolored lantern tellingly. "It will be left in the past, just as candles have, for the most part."

He nodded quietly, sighing as he shifted uncomfortably. "Wish I knew how exactly I could do that, but I getcha. Pa felt the same about me n' teaching me what he knew about Ma's history."

She hummed at that, looking around slowly. "Where is Angela?" Ana asked, something sly and conspicuous in her tone.

"No idea." He admitted after a moment, sitting up knowingly as her lips quirked up into a smile, the way that told him that she was up to something fun.

"Would you join me for Sahour?" She asked, and Jesse didn't even need to answer fully with words as he was very quickly up on his feet without much other prompting.

XXXXX

Middle of the night meals with Ana during Ramadan were something he'd participated in for many a year now. They were almost always incredibly fun, and he'd been doing them since he had first joined them, with Fareeha just starting to participate in them truly herself.

The meal was thankfully already prepared, and she poured him an extra cup of tea, handing it to him quickly as she then sat down with him to enjoy the night, setting her lantern up with the rest of her collection.

"Its a shame Fareeha isn't here." He murmured. "You made her favorite." He gestured to the ground up lamb and other vegetables, all topped with a fried egg.

Ana sighed quietly as she sat with him on her couch, shrugging quietly. "It is her favorite. That was why I was in Cairo. She'd been playing phone tag with me, and I had been making preparations for Eid, so I took a day to go see her. She refused to, though." A long pause. "I understand it though. She's busy in training, and she's fasting. I likely aggravated the issue by showing up in person."

Jesse didn't know how to respond to that, and so only nodded quietly, sipping the tea that Ana had given him quietly.

There was another, slightly more comfortable silence as Ana ate her plate of food quietly, seeming a bit down.

He was in the middle of starting his own plate of deliciously spiced food, when Ana asked a strange question.

"Do you think Fareeha knows that I'm proud of her?"

He choked on his food, and had to cough some, staring at her in bafflement. When it was clear that she was expecting an answer, staring at him intently with sharp amber eyes. He had to swallow then, not just his food, but also his sudden fear of upsetting Ana.

"Well, ma'am, I've only heard you say the best things about her." He admitted. "You tell us all the time how well she's done for herself, how well she did in her school in Canada with her father in her fancy engineering program." Ana nods at that, tersely.

"I had hoped she would pursue a career in civil engineering, like her father." She admitted quietly. "I didn't want her in the army."

"S' understandable, Ma'am," McCree allowed. "For all the good this has brought me, this life has brought me a lot of shit too." He swirled his sugar in his tea cup. "Never mind how Amélie Lacroix was what, basically Fareeha's age now, right?"

"That is correct." Ana confirmed, the words heavy. "Killing brings much pain to my soul. I do what I must to keep my family safe, as I always have. There is nothing more important than protecting the ones you love. I always have been willing to fight, and die for it. That was why I left Fareeha with her father in Canada, and fought the omnic threat. That was why I joined Overwatch. So that Fareeha could live a better life."

Jesse took off his hat, and rubbed his hair quietly. "Amélie Lacroix was a civilian, she was a ballet dancer." He paused, thinking about it some. "Never mind how Overwatch is under investigation right now."

Ana nodded again, faster. "Exactly! If things go sour, I do not want this to be her defining moment of her career!" There was a long sigh. "I want her safe. I want to end this fight, so that she may live the life she deserves. I only hope that one day, she may understand." She closed her eyes quietly. "I have only ever felt the deepest of loves for her. I tried to name her for what she was to me, what she will _always_ be to me."

She looked at McCree quietly, pleading with her expression. "She is my happiness. My joy."

At that, he nodded again, picking at his food quietly. "Then I think she will understand. Maybe not right now. But she will, some day. She might be angry right now, that she cannot get where she wants to be, but I know you love her, that you're proud of her, and that you only want the best for her, even if its not what she really wants."

She licked her lips, and nodded. "Alright. Alright." She gets up, letting McCree continue to eat as she packs up some of her food. "The last day of Ramadan is tomorrow, and then I invite you all to Eid. She smiled, trying to lighten the mood. "Feel free to stop by whenever."

"Thanks, ma'am," He tipped his hat at her as he put it back on his head. "I should go back to the medbay before Angie does her rounds." He stood up, bringing his plates over to her small sink, and gave her kisses on her cheeks. "I'll see you tomorrow for Iftar, Ana." He promised. "And I'll drag Genji, or Angie and I will try to. For the rich one, he's pretty uncultured." He joked, making Ana snort and roll her eyes.

"Go to bed, McCree." She ordered, and far be it from him to turn her down, a good kind of weariness finally soaking into him, and he marched his ass right on back to the medbay, hardly caring he was still wearing shoes from his 3 am meal.

XXXXX

Of all the days since the damn incident that got his arm blown the fuck off, the ones he spent with Ana were perhaps the best ones. He wound up being able to spend his free time between helping Gabriel with some paperwork, moving boxes for Petras, and cooking and preparing for Eid with Ana.

The last Iftar of Ramadan was spent with everyone that was in their main circle of friends, even Genji had shown up out of Angela's sheer force of will to include him in their activities.

He was in the process of being remodeled, no longer wishing to don the red and black look of Blackwatch apparently. Something bitter in Jesse spoke to how he'd used Blackwatch to get his revenge and now wanted nothing more to do with them, much as how the public had been happy to use them back in the better days, and now were more than happy to wipe their hands clean of them in some official trial that was going to put a few of them into prison for the rest of their days, or something else terrible.

But Jesse bit his tongue for now. He'd get along, for Angela's sake, for Ana's sake, if not for Genji. He didn't want Ana coming to know how bitter he was about Genji. She'd turn it into a life lesson, or some shit.

But that was real hard, 'cause even now, he was acting like a massive prick, not even trying to participate in the conversation. Angela swore that he wasn't really a prick, and yet Jesse had a damn hard time believing it, because he looked down on literally everything and acted like even speaking to him like a regular human being was something that was straight up forbidden.

The Blackwatch nickname for him might be Spoiled Murdered Prince, but fuck Jesse if he'd ever say that aloud. He understood being angry at the world for everything, hell, he'd been there, but Genji had spat in that a damn long time ago. And then after the stint that had gotten them all caught, well, Jesse didn't think their relationship had improved much, if at all.

Somehow, as strange as it was, Jesse and Genji somehow wound up alone. N' really, it wasn't that strange, since Genji had followed him to the balcony when he'd gone to smoke by himself.

"So you're drinking now." He stated flatly, staring at him with reddish brown eyes.

"Always such a pleasure to chat, Genji." McCree muttered, his temper mild at this point after the wonderful mean.

"Don't deflect me. I know how you feel about this mess McCree. There's no way you're just going to simply sit here and do nothing about it. They're going to come for people like us." Genji's metallic foot tapped on the floor expectantly, and Jesse gave him a very disapproving look.

"Genji. Genji. Why on earth would I talk about my feelings, when I could just... _not_." He pointed out with a shrug of his shoulders. "'Cause, uhm, fuck that soft shit. I think its time to break out the classic rock." Jesse said, hand already grabbing the bourbon, and Genji just gave an exasperated eye roll, somehow managing to completely convey how much he disagreed with that.

"Where will you be when all this goes wrong, Jesse McCree?" He asked, arms folded, and voice still incredibly artificial.

"I won't be anywhere when things go wrong, 'cause things won't go wrong." He shrugged, giving a thin-lipped smile.

Genji scoffed loudly at that. "So you're just going to follow Reyes to hell?" He asked pointedly, glaring some. "You're smarter than that McCree. I know you are. You won't just sit here and sink into the quicksand."

Jesse glared at him straight on at that. "Fuck you." He finally had to break. "You ain't got a say in what I do." He looked at the ground.

"I don't." He agreed. "...Dr. Ziegler said that your blood alcohol levels were at lethal levels. She's going to bring you in for a doctors appointment. Do you have a problem, Jesse McCree?"

At that, a long silence reigned king between them, as McCree leveled him with the nastiest look that he could possibly give him. Genji wasn't ever this direct with him- but this was face on, and while Jesse would normally appreciate his straightforward phrasing, this was something that McCree didn't even like to bring up in more subtle ways.

So he just had to stare at him. "What the fuck gives you the right to ask that about me?" His voice was a dangerous growl, and Genji's brow furrowed enough for him to see the expression underneath the mask.

"McCree- Jesse." He started, and Jesse just held his outraged expression that belied his true anger.

"Don't you Jesse me." He narrowed his eyes. "What are you asking for? Angie, sure, if she'd ask, I'd see it. But you? We're not friends, Genji." He explained as plainly as he could.

"We're not friends?" Genji asked, in disbelief.

"No, and we haven't been ever, I reckon. Just been coworkers. You don't go from being a right asshole, which you've _always_ been, mind you, to bein buds." He pointed out with an accusatory finger.

Genji's red eyes expressed some surprise, and while Jesse sympathized some, he wasn't quick to truly want to apologize for this. So he continued.

"My problems are just that- mine." He grit out, and Genji backed off. "I don't need the commentary, I certainly don't need advice from you. Ain't like you have your life together. So, yes. I will follow him to hell. That's what loyalty is. S' what _love_ is." He finally said it aloud, and it was like something in the room changed.

"Wait- _love?_ " Genji stopped, holding up his hand. "You, love, Reyes?" Genji clarified, seeming completely taken aback, completely surprised.

Jesse didn't answer, his throat clamped up and raw with the truth.

"Jesse, that's not the kind of person, we're not the kind of people who are meant for that." Genji pointed out, and McCree's heart constricted. "We're not meant for that soft shit. And I know you're like me. This won't work out." He tilted his head, and Jesse wasn't able to meet his gaze.

Genji gave a huff. "People like us are meant for people like us. We should leave now. I know you want to. You've seen the signs. This job will kill us."

"That ain't your place to decide for me, Genji. We're not friends, and we're certainly not anything like what you're suggesting. Now get the fuck out of here, moody bastard." He muttered, and Genji seemed like he was the one that had been mistreated, but he left, and Jesse was able to let out a sigh.

He loved Gabriel Reyes. That was just the plain truth of things. He, Jesse McCree, was in love.

He felt sick. He felt overjoyed. He felt release, a relapse into something that he'd thought he'd lost years ago.

Genji left, and he was left alone with complicated thoughts and something like relief. He'd finally come to terms with it.

Jesse McCree wanted Gabriel Reyes, not just his body, not like any other relationship he'd ever had. He wanted him. All of him. His heart too.

Genji left, and with it, the snaggletooth voice of his depression that echoed of his words of how he wasn't the kind of person meant for something like _love_.

XXXXX

"There are known knowns- the things we know that we know. Then there are known unknowns- the things we know we don't know. But then there's unknown unknowns, the things we don't know we don't know." Gabriel explained with a huff. "Donald Rumsfeld- I hate the sunuvabitch, but its a useful thing to explain some of this. We know that the UN and Petras are fuckin us damn sideways, and we know that we don't know who is fuckin leaking shit. But there are those unknown unknowns that are fucking shit up further. I can deal with SNAFUs, but this is getting beyond that."

Someone raised their hand. "So you're saying that we know that we don't know the things we don't know?" He tried, and there was a round of snickers as Gabriel rubbed his temples.

Blackwatch information meetings were always like this, and Jesse took in a deep breath as he shifted in his seat to relax completely. This was going to take a while, and Gabe's polisci degree usually complicated things further than they really needed to be.

"Not quite. We're aware that there's forces at play that are changing up variables that we can't account for, because we don't even know what kind of forces they are. Things we don't know that we don't know."

There was still confused murmurs that went around the ranks, and Gabriel rubbed his temples, trying to wrap his brain around a easier way to say this.

"An unknown unknown in the case of the Shimada family was the plot to murder Genji. We didn't know that we didn't know that was coming. Versus, how we knew we didn't know how deep corruption went in the Japanese government. We could still make predictions, because we were aware we had no fucking clue, but Genji joining us was an unknown unknown- something we couldn't have even thought to predict prior to it happening."

There were a few more head nods at that, and Gabriel was able to keep briefing about their intelligence about the leaks within the Overwatch base itself.

There was a sigh, from a younger member not too much longer after that. "I swear, this damn job is trying to kill us. We're the good guys! We're trying not to let Talon just fuck things up! They're the terrorists- don't they get that?" He looked to Jesse for answers.

"Nope." Jesse popped the syllable, shrugging. "They don't get a goddamn thing. They just know that a lot of us were unsavory members of society and thats apparently enough to make a decent judgement."

"McCree, Green." Gabriel barked snippily. "Your attention, please. Even though we're all no longer on active duty and its our job to really only sit our asses here on base, I'm trying my damndest to at least maintain the _image_ of us being a functioning part of this larger operation, got it? So fucking pay attention."

Green nodded sheepishly, and Jesse merely met Gabe's gaze straight on and nodded more purposefully, before Gabriel let out a mildly irritated sigh and continued.

"Because Morrison has the _balls_ to think that the leak comes from my side of things, I don't have all the information about this anti-Talon mission that we'll be taking on in a few days time. I know it's Captain Amari's team, and both Morrison and Amari are going to be present in Poland. There are a group of Overwatch affiliated staff and personnel being held hostage, and that is what is giving us the ability to really act. Its your lots job to figure out where they're being held, and what sort of problems we'll be facing in Poland. I get it, we only have minimal information, but regardless, again, Blackwatch is Overwatch's main feed of intelligence, and so we have to try anyway."

And with that, he passed out several manilla folders to everyone in the room, and waved them all away to go do their work elsewhere.

Jesse fingered his manilla folder with a grumbly sigh, rolling his eyes. He really wasn't a damn fan of this whole paper trail intelligence schtick, but he supposed he'd asked for it by coming in for work. Picking up the creme colored folder with a lump of papers and photos in it, putting it under his stupid fucking half arm, and stood in a huff, walking off and cursing the UN beneath his breath for good measure.

XXXXX

"McCree." The conversation began with his last name, as many did these days. He had to take pause, because the owner of that voice was someone who knew him well enough that he didn't mind the use of Jesse at all to get his attention.

"Yes, Dr. Ziegler?" He asked from where he was sitting, eyes glazed over reading redacted and otherwise information, compiling information in his analysis of the situation at hand.

"I'd like to see you come into my office." She stated, voice still rather formal. "I'd like to talk about a few things."

McCree had to sigh, because he had so much work to be doing, and he only had one hand to type with. "Angie, I don't..." The second he turned around, he really, truly wished that he hadn't.

"Genji." Angela looked at her feet, her delicately small hands balled into fists, eyes red. "He...told me he was leaving. His mission was over, and so he was going to leave."

Almost immediately, Jesse was on his feet. His throat was dry. "He told you he was leaving?" He repeated, going over to her, abandoning his manilla folder and analysis report.

She nodded, and looked up at him, eyes teared up. "He, I, we…" She let out a stifled sob, wiping her eyes quietly. "We weren't…anything, not really, but I, I thought…and…" She hiccuped, and McCree didn't need more of an explanation, pulling Angela against him, hugging her tight, letting her sink into his familiar hug.

Angela Ziegler was the yin to his yang, he'd always thought. Ever since she'd joined on officially when she'd been 21, the two were thick as thieves. Damn if she wasn't a pretty lil bird, and her professional nature and educational status made him look like a hick from the middle of nowhere. But, his ability to schmooze and charm folks made her bedside manner look like a screaming harpy.

They weren't exactly opposites, more like platonic soulmates, as Angela had referred to it as.

And even though she and Jess had messed around, they had fun with it, and it had been on completely mutual terms when they had stopped. They were better friends than lovers.

There was a different story to be told with Genji- not unlike the one he had with Gabriel.

 _We're not the kind of people who are meant for that._

Genji's urging to get Jesse to run away with him haunts him now, with a distraught Angela Ziegler unable to admit her feelings to someone who didn't fucking deserve them.

"Ange, I know. I understand." He rumbled quietly, putting a hand on her head and holding her, letting her quiver and shake with the things she'd not been able to say to the one she was so upset over.

"I, I always tried to let him know." She stammered, and he nodded understandingly as he walked with her, letting her adjust to walk better, an easy arm over her shoulder. "It wouldn't have been right, I was treating him, he was my patient. He had things to work through. A lot of things, and, I tried to be there for him, I really did, but he was just _angry_ sometimes and I didn't know what to do. He was allowed to be angry, a lot in his _life_ was never going to be the same but still, I," She finally sobbed.

Jesse finally got her to the medical bay, and closed her office door behind them, letting her sob.

"I love him." She admitted in a small voice. "I love him. Even when he's _difficult_ and _angry_ and I, I never said anything because the time wasn't right, and the strength of my own feelings _scares_ me. I've always been married to my work, I've never even thought of settling down because this job is my life, this career is who I am, and Genji changed that. I've always wanted to help the good of everyone, been an advocate for peace, but he came along and made me question that. His story, I wanted to make someone else hurt for him. I wanted to march right along to the person who did this to him, turned someone called a sparrow in his youth to such an angry person, and I don't know what I'd do, but I'd do _something_." Tears dropped freely now, and she laughed, the sound sad and broken. "I bet if he'd asked, I would have agreed to children."

His eyes widened and jaw dropped in mock horror. "Angie, Angie, _no_ , you hate children."

Angela laughed again, the sound somewhat warmer as she smiled, wiping her eyes. "They would be adopted. And, at least 10 years old. And potty trained."

Jesse was laughing, shaking his head as he hugged her, letting her laughter continue. "Angie, kids know how to use the toilet at 3 or 4 years old. C'mon. Do you remember meeting Fareeha? She was 12! You treated her like, I don't know, a snot covered monster."

"She was a kid!" Angela was now actually laughing. "I'd not been around my peers in ages, Jesse! Let alone younger children."

"She wasn't even a child! She was a pre-teen!" Jesse pointed out with another guffaw. "I've _always_ let you have that, Angie, why the fuck do you think I come along and cook for you every now and again?"

"You've just always been so much better at all that stuff than I am." Angela said through a fit of giggles, blue eyes softer, the edges still red. "Do you know how many times I wished that I had your ability to deal with people? How many times I wished I could be like you?"

It was around then that McCree knew _exactly_ what to do to help her feel better after losing someone who would have given her the reason to share her life with someone else.


	3. Chapter 3

"What, Morrison? Almost 15 years you've known me, and you _don't_ want to see me dress as Angela? I'm insulted." Jesse scoffed. "I've always thought I'd make a great blonde. Plus, blue really is my color." He teased, blond wig on him just as Angela was wearing a brown wig and stick on patches of false facial hair, the white doctors coat and overwatch blue scrubs truly an iconic look on him.

The strike commander hadn't really ever addressed anything, but was instead just dumbly staring at Jesse in apparent disbelief. He'd seen the doctors coat, and had been running on automatic apparently, handing over a manilla folder with something in it to Jesse's midsection, and had been surprised when it got lifted to Angela's height- since McCree was a good several inches taller than her. And now, he was just giving him a shit eating grin.

Morrison put his hands up in surrender, walking out of the room as Angela and him both giggled like a bunch of teenage girls at a sleepover.

She looked rather good in red and black, even though his uniform on her was far more baggy on her than his borrowed scrubs were on him. The cowboy hat sat way too low on her head, and she frequently had to pick it back up, but was even carrying peacekeeper and badly saying _howdy_ to the people they were passing, and he was spouting off the only German phrases he knew- I'd like a glass of whiskey, hello, thanks, dammit, and of course; where's the bathroom.

Ana's bark of laughter was truly a gift as she came in, whipping out her camera quickly. "Goodness! I had heard, but I hadn't believed it. You two look fantastic. It's a bit late for Halloween, though."

"We're just catching up with it now." Angela remarked, absolutely glowing with happiness. "It's been so gloomy around here, with the investigation pending, and now Genji defecting, well, we both figured we weren't the only ones who needed patching up."

"You were the one who said you wished you were me. How's it feel?" He asked with a smirk, and she chuckled, shrugging.

"Like I need to wash these clothes in fire, but also, I feel….powerful." She admitted, posing with his beloved peacekeeper in a mock up of Charlie's Angels, to another round of bemused laughter from the pair of them.

There was a sound of clamoring footsteps, and Jesse choked on a sudden guffaw as Gabriel appeared in the doorway with an exhilarated expression on his face, camera out and quickly snapping a few photos of Jesse, prompting poses.

"Never knew you had a medical kink," Jesse teased, as Ana let out a massive snort and Angela went flush, still unused to discussing sexual topics with Ana or Gabriel, whereas Jesse had muddied those waters _decades_ ago.

Gabriel's joyous cackling at that prompted them all to join in with his, and Jesse went over to steal a kiss, smooching Gabriel's cheek, chapped lips against familiar scruff. There was a round of barely contained chortles, and Gabe's smile was ear to ear. "My, Dr. Ziegler! How forward of you," He feigned surprise, though the expression was ruined by the happy tremors of laughter that shook him from his chest out.

Jesse gave him back a faux image of horror, eyes wide as they could be, crinkled at the edges with his beaming expression getting a bit in the way. "I'm so sorry! I don't know what came over me," He said in the highest, most feminine voice he could pull off, getting another round of snickers from Ana and Angela.

"May I, mister McCree?" Gabriel asked Angela a bit more carefully, and she nodded with another flushed giggle, as he leaned in to give her a chaste kiss on her cheek.

Overall, whenever Jesse and Gabriel group up with Angela and Ana, you knew there was going to be some goofing off happening, and it truly happened when Ana nabbed Gabriel's beanie right off his head, throwing her cap and blue coat at him, making the man shake his head and rolll his eyes in obvious amused disapproval, taking off his beloved coat and handing it off to Ana.

The smaller woman drowned in it, but proudly displayed it and put her hands up in a shrug as she lowered her voice by 2 octaves and said, " _I'm not the one with the statue,"_ which naturally made everyone there- save Gabriel- lose it to hysterical laughter, and even he had to give a bit of his trademarked shrug and a semi-embarrassed smile.

"I was upset with him! He was bitching and moaning about wanting to break the rules and then simultaneously complaining about Jesse breaking them. If I was gonna have my work taken credit of anyway, might as well make him do more of the paperwork this time around." Gabriel defended himself. "Plus, the statue is a little much. Ana, I know you agree with that."

She could only smirk at him though. "I wasn't passing judgment on if it was a good or a bad thing. More just saying, that it was an iconic moment." Ana winked. "What is my iconic moment?"

Gabriel gave pause, before coughing to get the proper high lilt to his voice. " _You're a grown man! Stop acting like a teenage boy and go get my maxi pads!"_

Ana almost shoved him over, and probably would have if he'd not been made out of SEP certified stuff. It was good to be around his friends again. It was a long time coming.

XXXXX

Hours later, after hours of playing dress up, things had finally gone back to normal and Jesse was in need of a smoke.

Watchpoint Gibraltar was always terrible for him- there was a pretty strict no-smoking policy in the base itself, and so he spent most of his time sitting on the edge of the path, smoking just to spite the policy itself.

At least the overlook was nice, even if Jesse wasn't ever a person to really just sit and enjoy the sun over the ocean. He stared down at the rocks beneath him, at the deep dark ocean beneath him, and he stared out once again at the sun not too far over the western horizon, preparing to set. The hours before twilight were always so compelling in Gibraltar. High tide was upon them, meaning twilight wouldn't be too far away now.

Now that he was alone, though, he had time to contemplate things. Yes, he was damn pissed as a rattler that Genji had just run off like that, but he was prolly a bit angry- and more than a bit iffin he was gonna be _real_ honest- that he had similar thoughts.

There was the roil of thunder in the background, but no sight of storm clouds yet, even though he could feel the subtle change in the air that warned of fouler weather coming soon. The rub was that Jesse'd been running his whole damn life, and now that Genji was gone, now that someone with such a history that Genji had gone and fucked right off, he was forced to at least address it.

He let out a breath he'd not realized he'd been holding, and had to wonder- what was keeping him here?

He could feel in all of him how this job, how just _waiting_ for the punishment to hit him was draining his life straight of his body. The ocean was calling him- he just had to listen.

The other reason that he hated this Watchpoint in particular was 'cause there wasn't anywhere to run but to the ocean. It was so far from his home out in the desert. The sand he could deal with, the water, vast and expanding further than the horizon, now that was somethin' he aint got no wishes to really deal with.

"Are you here by yourself?" The voice was warm with familiar affection, and Gabriel was behind him, interrupting his thoughts and drawing him from trying to work through the powerful instinct to run that was now completely triggered, and he felt the need to punch Genji all over again.

Jesse snorted to clear those thoughts from his head. "As it so happens, not anymore." He patted the earth beside him, and Gabriel was slow to sit down- prolly having just figured out that Jesse had been wanting to be alone- but joined him regardless. There was a moment of ambient silence, with Jesse staring out at the ocean, not paying much mind to Gabriel, before he had to ask. "What happens...now?"

"I don't really have any good answers." Gabriel answered, and Jesse turned back to the ocean, sighing quietly. "...its okay, to be afraid. I don't know all the details. And the issue's been compounded since Genji...defected."

Jesse made a noise of irritation that Gabe hit the nail so hard on the head, gripping his serape tight in his hand. "I can't believe that asshole. We've been _caught_ because of him, and he's fucking gone. He just up and left! Left Angela, left Blackwatch, _while_ we're facing an active international criminal investigation, the fucker."

Gabriel sighed some, the sound barely audible. "I understand your anger." He replied amicably, placing his hand over Jesse's. "I just hope that...eventually he finds the answers he's looking for, and the UN lets him go. He did everything we asked of him, and yes, things didn't necessarily go smoothly, but he was going through a lot, and," Gabriel tried, and Jesse interrupted, unwilling to hear it.

"He's fucking ungrateful! We stuck our necks out on the damn line for him, and he just _vanishes_ like this?" Jesse raged, and he would have continued if Gabriel hadn't snorted and started to laugh. And then he had to look at Gabriel in utter befuddlement. He didn't have a goddamned clue what was so fucking funny about this situation.

"It's funny how I recall you being not too different from that not terribly long ago." Gabe was smiling, and the orange glow of the sun above them made his brown eyes look like the desert that was his childhood home. "We all used to call you the damn ingrate." He smirked, before snorting. "It doesn't feel too long ago, though."

Jesse rolled his eyes. "It feels like forever ago for me. For one," He cupped Gabriel's face, tenderly pulling him into a kiss, before continuing with a sly smile on his lips. "I used to smoke cigarettes, so that would have tasted like absolute shit."

Gabriel broke out into laughter, shoving McCree playfully. "You! You were only 17 years old! I didn't even think of that back then, Jesse." He shook his head, breathing out another laugh, giving him a look with a flirtatious smile and a raised eyebrow. "You were so damn quiet, until you had something to bitch about with that mile wide mean streak you had."

Jesse only shook his head in disagreement, rolling his eyes at the reminder. "Ain't like that now." He mumbled, and Gabriel's head slowly went against his shoulder, the position rather comfortable for them both. Gabriel handed him a beer, seemingly out of nowhere. Prolly his gloriously soft sweatshirt. The fiend- hiding alcohol from him.

Without speaking much on it, Jesse wrapped his arm back around Gabriel, and watched as the sun went down over the horizon.

"Do we want to just stay here?" Jesse asked, voice careful, as the sun was still watching them. It was strange he was asking it now, but Genji, damn him, made him think about his basest instincts. He was right. He'd spent his whole damn life running. And he was scared, of death, of their future, and of the feeling that he'd spent so damn long thinking he was simply incapable of. And now he was here, staring at the sunset on the twilight years of Overwatch, just past 30 now and feeling like he wasn't over the hill yet, and yet, the hill had come and gone a long time ago.

"I was hoping that, since you've been feeling so much better, maybe we can try something." Gabriel purred slightly, deep dark brown eyes staring up at him with such warmth, it only felt like home.

Jesse returned the sensual look with a somewhat exasperated smile, but kissed him again nonetheless, Gabe's lips soft and warm against his own. Regardless of anything he felt beneath the surface, Gabriel tasted like a craving, like something integral.

Like wishing on a star that he'd sometimes see in the twilight.

Wishing that they could run away together, he supposed.

He pretended they were as he stood up, drinking his beer, and giving Gabriel a hand up. "Well, if you insist." Gabriel smirked, teasingly, finishing his own and then wrapping his arms around Jesse's muscular back.

Jesse plucked the emptied glass out of his hands with some effort, and Gabriel's easy chuckles that made his extremely fine shoulders move slightly- he was only wearing a tank top, not quite having wrestled his sweatshirt back from Ana yet, apparently, but he looked pleased as Jesse threw it and his own glass into a recycling bin.

"Helping the planet now, after all this time?" He teased, eyes warm like the way the earth looked on a peaceful morning in the middle of nowhere.

He had to roll his eyes. "Damn Californian," Jesse clicked his tongue in mock disapproval. "Enough with that hippy shit."

Gabriel's laughter was everything to him now, and his damn heart beat fast in his chest, listening to it. It was contagious, and he knew only now what he was sick with.

 _Love_. The admission to Genji was still thick in his head like the way the humidity of Gibraltar felt after living in a desert for all those years of his youth. Too much, overbearing, like having to press forward through invisible water resistance that you have no practice in. A known unknown- he knew he was unfamiliar with love just as he had been unfamiliar with humidity.

Another known unknown was that he knew he didn't know what Gabriel felt in return. Did he feel anything? From his warmth and his affection and the way they stumbled back to Gabriel's larger, cleaner quarters, Jesse knew he felt something.

Was it love?

Jesse might want it to be.

He shut the door behind them, and Gabriel's head rolled backwards against the metal lightly, as he helped McCree get him undressed, breathing hard, encouraging him with nods and light, affirmative noises and breathy little " _yes, please"_ s.

He was working Gabriel out of his pants, when something hit him while his one hand struggled with the zipper. "Gabe, I won't be able to prepare you," His horny brain skipped like a CD with a scratch on it at the unhappy reminder- a fear he'd not be able to satisfy.

Gabriel's expression softened, and he helped by wiggling out of his pants, before walking to the bed, head turning so his warm eyes, twinkling in some mischievous way, eyes lowering some in a silent request for Jesse to follow his gaze, and once he did…

A bright red buttplug stood out against black skin, and Jesse's throat went dry as his cock throbbed in response.

Gabe had gone ahead and prepped himself for this.

The thought was both sweet, and arousing. He'd come out and had a tiny little heart to heart with Jesse about things, all the while that lil _gift_ for Jesse's eyes only was deep in his ass.

The music that was Jesse's thoughts skipped again, before the CD was playing in Overdrive and he was so fucking eager to get a taste of Gabriel all over again. This was how they had started. Just talking in front of the sun until Gabriel had made a move and Jesse wholeheartedly said, _yes, please_.

He rushed over to the bed to join him, Gabriel's easygoing smile somehow widening as he spread himself apart for Jesse, and Jesse leaned over in helpless obedience, worship, of the man that his heart and body wanted everything from.

His one hand was occupied, gripping the tender, muscular flesh of his thighs, so he shimmied his body downwards and gripped the rubber bottom of the butt plug with his teeth, letting Gabriel know of how much he appreciated this by flicking his gaze up to him.

Gabriel's breath caught, and his cock was definitely getting hard, watching Jesse with rapt attention. His teeth released the plastic, and his hand came over, watching as Gabriel trembled needily, pupils blown as he stared, waiting for the tension to break as his hand wrapped around the butt plug and slowly pulled it out, Gabriel's erection growing in size as he swallowed thickly, and there was a pop sound as it finally came out.

"Good boy," Jesse's accent was heavy in his lust, and it sent shivers up through Gabriel's body, his smile becoming hungry for more.

"Can I get a reward?" He asked, only partly teasing as his hips bucked up when the tip of Jesse's finger played with the tip of his cock, nudging at the foreskin lightly as it was starting to pull downwards.

"So spoiled." Jesse murmured, before his hand went down the shaft of his cock with the foreskin, loving the way it made Gabriel moan and bite his lower lip in a vain attempt to keep himself quiet before the main act began, and but that was out the door the moment Jesse's lips wrapped around his tip, making Gabriel shout beneath him.

"F-Fuck, Jess!" Gabriel bucked up helplessly, eyes wide as his hands went to Jesse's hair and tangled themselves in it. "So good, s' so good."

Jesse hadn't ever believed Gabriel when he'd said that Morrison didn't give head, but now, watching him writhe, he knew Gabe had only ever put out oral. Jesse knew by now that Gabe gave good head, but Jesse wasn't a fresh spring chicken to that arena himself. He prided himself on knowing how to use his pouty lips and big mouth to make men weak at the knees.

He hollowed out his cheeks some by widening his jaw further, rolling his tongue around Gabriel's hot erection and making him gasp beneath him.

Unfortunately as a side effect though, Gabe couldn't ever handle much of this. "Jess, Jess, m' gonna, dont wanna yet," he called, panting hard as the stimulation was so fucking much to him that he was going to cream himself only a minute in.

Jesse pulled his lips away with a pop, and Gabriel shivered beneath him, panting still. "I spent… 10 minutes getting myself ready for you. I'm not gonna bust early." He said determinedly, and Jesse's returning chuckle was deep and filled with the heat of summer sex, even though it was late into fall already.

"Alright, baby," He said, a hand going up under the beanie and feeling the soft hair that was starting to grow underneath it. "That's fine by me."

"I want your stupid thick dick." He breathed out heavily, eyes glossy as he fingered Jesse's own erection now, and Jesse felt a self-satisfied grin on his face as he climbed on top of Gabriel, rubbing his cheek lovingly with his one hand, feeling the scruff of Gabriel's beard and kissing his lips deeply.

"Beg for it." Jesse said simply, and Gabe _whined_ , 'cause sex was a pleasant release from the stress of command and leadership. He didn't _have_ to command authority, he was able to be pampered and that was a nice change in pace from all the responsibility that was hanging over them.

" _Plllleeease_ ," Gabe drew the word out, eyes big as he sprawled himself out on the bed, eyes big and biting his lip again in a rare show of vulnerability. "I need it." He said simply, hands gripping tightly to his own white shirt, since Jesse was naked.

It wasn't really a thorough job, but the dry spell they'd been in had gone on long enough, and Jesse nodded approvingly. "Good boy." He said, kissing Gabriel again and making his hip wiggle in excitement.

Jesse couldn't quite wrangle him in the way he used to, but he was able to grab his hip and hold it still, watching as Gabriel obediently spread his legs for him, pupils blown with desire.

It made him happy though, and he was so warm and tight, as Jesse carefully positioned himself inside and slowly pushed in, Gabriel's mouth in a perfect 'o' shape, eyes wide as he finally got what he was after. Their dry spell, brought on by Jesse's injury and subsequent inpatient status, followed by depression, had finally ended, and Gabriel's legs wrapped around Jesse's ass to help position himself.

"Yes, yes, yes," He chanted, as Jesse's own breathing hitched and he kissed the edge of Gabriel's lips, only to have Gabriel meet them, his blissful expression absolutely everything to Jesse. Once Jesse was seated inside him, his balls up against the firm skin of his very nicely shaped ass, Gabriel gave a very pleased and excited moan, nails digging into Jesse's skin as his legs gripped tighter around him.

It was a careful balancing act, but they made it work, with Jesse using the wall at the top of the bed, and some pillows to balance Gabriel, while he rocked his hips back and forth in a fast, as smooth as he could manage type of rhythm.

Gabriel's head rolled back, making a small thumping noise up against the wall as he kissed Jesse passionately, bucking his hips up into Jesse's own thrusts, drawing pleasured groans and shouts from Jesse as well.

"Such a talented sub." Jesse growled, nipping Gabriel's neck and getting another groan of delight, before he softened and kissed the light mark, suckling it carefully, not really trying to leave a hickey today.

Jesse loved the way he looked, spread beneath him, clinging tight and writhing in absolute ecstasy beneath him. These were the things he had once regarded as fantasy, and were now made into reality.

It felt like it all came to a head too soon, with Gabriel cumming hard into Jesse's bared stomach, a slightly dazed expression on his face as Jesse came inside of him, a bit afterward but not minding the lack of synchronization.

"Thank you, Jess." He murmured, curling up with him appreciatively, a finger running along his chest as they shared in the mutual sense of cozy fondness, and they were able to lie like that for a decent amount of time, it felt like.

It wasn't enough, but when Gabriel got up and stretched, coming back with a wet towel, there was still work to be done, and even though it was wonderfully tender, the real world was still plugging away outside Gabriel's quarters, and the fantasy had to be left alone, for a little while.

XXXXX

The evening that Morrison and Ana left incited an unofficial work 'party' to just occupy the workroom and get the last of the reports and analyses condensed into formal intel. In Jesse's formal opinion, it was the lamest possible thing to call this. He low-key wishes that they could just call it what it was. Miserable, unpaid overtime.

That meant McCree was lazily copying and pasting things from the computers into his main document, eyes glazed over from having stared at the computer for 10 hours after putting off his work by having sex- a willing sacrifice to be quite honest.

He was reading over it, and noticed that he had made a mistake, when the computer mistook his intent and deleted the entire document when he said casually to "trash that." Really, they had verbal command technology since the early 2010s, surely you'd think that computer nerds had taught the damn thing some slang terms.

Jesse let out a long, and unimpressed sigh, going to the trash and going to dig it out himself.

His eyes were just casually perusing the files for his own, and noticed a strange one.

11/3/70 REPORT. FOR: AGENT LACROIX

Something like bile rose in his throat as his finger hovered over it. There was nostalgia there, for times that had long since past. It was most likely in the trash because some poor, tired soul had made a mistake. Had forgotten their dead, had forgotten their past, not unlike how Jesse sometimes did. How any of them sometimes did. He stared emptily at the glowing holographic that sat before him. Gérard Lacroix, and his wife Amélie had died because of Blackwatch's suspension. There wasn't much else there to it- except a radical misjudgment on the part of the UN that had gotten 2 people in their 20s, both years younger than Jesse was, kidnapped and assassinated in their own damn quarters inside the Overwatch compound in France.

It was because of their murders, and the success of the Uprising, that Gabriel had been able to negotiate their reinstatement into the main force. Petras had tried his damnedest to get them fucked over for the deaths of Gérard and Amélie Lacroix, but the hard truth of it was that they hadn't had any damn intelligence to go off of. Overwatch had lost their eyes in a room filled to the brim with knives. It was only a matter of time before something had gone terribly wrong.

Gérard had survived as many assassination attacks as he had, _because_ of Blackwatch being a powerful force of nature within Overwatch's own sphere. Them being put on that 2 week long unofficial termination of employment was what had gotten them killed. Even after Gabriel had been brought back to the base, by an emergency call from Ana Amari, telling him they _needed_ him to to help figure things out now. And then there was the uprising in Kings Row, and Gabriel had called him with details now that he had eyes inside the base again, had access to their resources, and since he'd yet to be officially called into work, he saw no issue with buying a plane ticket to London to get boots on the ground.

Jesse McCree hadn't ever realized how much Overwatch had changed him. And then suddenly he was in King's Row, against direct orders to do _nothing,_ since Blackwatch was altogether suspended.

He hadn't ever realized when he started having a problem with the idea of something unjust happening because he didn't act. In his youth, in his time with Deadlock, he'd fought for only one person- and that had been himself. He'd never given a shit if innocents were hurt along the way. If civilians got in his way, that was their damn fault.

Somewhere in the years he'd been here, he'd grown a damn conscience, and he wasn't sure how to feel about that.

And now he just stared at the report someone wrote for a dead man, a man who was dead because Jesse hadn't been able to do his damn job, and he sighed, the sound that of a man who wanted things he could never have.

Jesse ain't never considered a world where he could honestly say that what he wanted was what was best for someone else. To be able to give justice in a way that the UN was telling them now, after all these years, wasn't going to be allowed. That justice was something integral to the system was a damn lie. He'd always known ever since he was a boy that the system was made unfair, that it was built to keep some people up and damn the consequences to everyone else.

But now, that wasn't enough anymore. When he was a boy, his Pa had taught him the only thing that was to be done was to try your best to manage, and help those you were able, but to not get too upset if there was nothing to be done. Deadlock had said different, that if the system screwed you, then you just gotta make what you can of it and fuck the rest of the folks out there.

The UN said now that Overwatch was meant all these years to keep the peace. To keep the peace meant to uphold the system. Jesse wanted more than that. That was what Blackwatch helped accomplish. Making those hard choices to change the fucking system.

He let out something stuck in the middle of a sigh and a chuckle, feeling old. Because that wasn't enough. Not anymore.

Peacekeeping wasn't enough anymore, much in the same way that what he had with Gabriel wasn't enough anymore.

His damn conscience and his damn heart both. They demanded more.

Jesse demanded more- demanded better. For himself, and for others alike.

With something like renewed determination, Jesse scrolled past the document for the dead man and found his file again, wanting Ana and her team to go in there with all the information they could. Just because paper trails were boring ass nonsense, didn't mean they wren't important when Jesse couldn't be there his damn self to watch her back.

And after that, he'd go to his quarters, and get some damn shut eye, and stop running from some of his uncertainties.


	4. Chapter 4

_Climbing out of the water, Gabriel was laughing out of exhilaration and Jesse was watching and breathing hard, because that water was damn cold. "How was that, cowboy?" He asked, and Jesse had only been able to give him a barely formed smile from how he was still taking a moment to recover._

 _"It was somethin', thats for damn sure." He was eventually able to say, and Gabriel laughed harder._

 _"Lighten up a bit, baby. It's not that bad." He stuck his tongue out at him, and he grabbed Jesse's hand all over again, taking it and dragging him out of the water and sand, both of them absolutely soaked, high off of the adrenaline._

 _But Jesse had to take a fuckin' second, and if Gabe wasn't gonna take a mo', he'd take one his damn self. He dug his feet into the sand, and dragged Gabriel backwards, the man flailing and getting brought back to Jesse._

 _Somewhere in the mess of limbs, Gabe had wound up against Jesse's chest, and his eyelids drooped as he looked at him, his expression softening as Jesse's eyes widened while Gabriel's calloused hands wrapped their way behind his neck, and clasped together, leaning his weight against him._

 _Gabriel's pupils were still blown from the adrenaline, and the air had left Jesse's lungs all over again for an entirely different reason. "I never did any of this with him, you know. These kinds of things are just...easy with you, Jess." He murmured, putting his head against Jesse's chest, ignoring how the salt water was starting to bake onto their skin. "You're my best friend... and, well..." He trailed off, voice soft._

 _"Gabriel?" He managed, his hands moving slowly, uncertain, one wrapping around his back and the other going to gently cup the back of his head and make him look up at Jesse._

 _He was completely taken aback when Gabriel met his lips in the middle, hugging him tighter. They stood there for a good long moment, Jesse sinking into the action with aching bones for something he's always wanted, never thought he could have._

 _"And I want you." Gabriel breathed as Jesse pulled them apart for answers. "I want everything you can give me. I want to give you everything I have. Jesse, you are...everything, right now."_

 _Jesse sucked in a breath of air, and dove again, tangling his hand into the short hairs that Gabriel hadn't yet shaved off to maintain his protocol hairstyle, Gabe's lips chapped and that making it somehow so much more real to Jesse now._

 _"Fuck me." Gabriel commanded in a shaky, but needy voice, pulling away to speak to him, eyes meeting Jesse's again. "Please, please, so hard that I can't think about what's going on, where I don't have eyes."_

 _"Yes." He answered an unspoken question, and carried him across the beach, up to the house they were staying in, their clothes soaked wet and either of them hardly cared as sand and salt water clung to them, neither of them wanting to break the moment they stopped making out, somehow suffocating Jesse beneath the weight of love_.

And then Jesse woke up from his dream, breathing hard as he sat up in his quarters. The TV was off, and the A/C was broken again, damn it. He rolled out of bed, and rubbed at his face, feeling his scar absently.

It was time to stop running from things.

He went to the bathroom, turning on the lights and fumbled through his medicine cabinet, and gently rubbed some of the cream Angela had prescribed for him months ago against the injury he'd been ignoring for so, so long at this point.

He sighed as he looked at himself in the face.

The meaningful way that Gabriel had told him that he was everything rang in his head, and he swallowed thickly as he rubbed his face.

The known unknown: Jesse didn't know if Gabe felt the same about Jesse, as Jesse felt about Gabe.

The unknown unknown...well, the impact that time had on them.

XXXXX

That morning was going to open up a new chapter in Jesse's life. He was sure of it, and he would make certain of it. No more fatalism. They'd taken all the steps to get here, now it was time to fucking do something about it.

He looked down at his arm, where it had been blown off 2 months ago, in an incident that had left him on life support for 2 days, but had kept part of his damn family safe, and decided that it was time to do something about it.

That was what prompted Jesse McCree to show up in Angela Ziegler's office first thing in the morning, practically making the woman fall out of her chair in surprise.

"How would I go about gettin' a prosthetic?" He asked, and her eyebrows shot up further.

"Who are you, and what have you done with Jesse McCree?" She asked, monotone, blue eyes wide, making him shrug some, an easy smile on his face.

"I was finally taking a page out of someone else's book." He replied easily. "Someone I know pretty well was awfully insistent on me taking better care of myself, and I'm tired of feeling bad about things I can't even hope to change." He admitted easily. "I aint gonna regrow an arm. But I can get a replacement. N' I happen to have someone at the ready who is the expert on the matter."

Angela let out a sort snort of laughter, and rolled her eyes. "You're far too extra, Jesse McCree." She responded with a head shake. "But- yes, I'd be more than happy to assist with that process. I'd like to give you a check up first." She informed, and even though he made a face, he submitted to it without further verbal complaints.

Around the time that she was about to finish up, about to go into get into him and chew out on how he wasn't taking his pills and how even if he could be functionally drunk, he was still drunk, which was why she had given him pain pills instead, before Jesse decided to just cut it off. She ain't never even ask why he didn't take his pills. It was time to stop running.

"I don't like the way they make me feel, doc," He grumbled, folding his arms. "Make my head feel like I ain't even present, and damn if they don't make me more irritable than a bull seein' red." He shook his head. "I took em the first day, almost bit off a poor recruits head, and then I just decided not to do it again. Alcohol was helping to kill the pain better anyway." Jesse explained, and Angela softened suddenly, brow furrowing in subtle confusion.

"They weren't killing the pain, but they were inhibiting your normal functioning and making you irritable?" Angela asked, checking her papers again. "That's...a very unusual reaction. You didn't react like that to the medication at all when you were an inpatient. Why didn't you tell me earlier?"

Jesse sighed. "You know me doc, ain't like me to ever schedule an appointment until I absolutely have to, n' that typically means when I'm half dead. Like I said, alcohol did the trick- so I just didn't see the point to fussin' about it. I wasn't even coming in for a prosthetic earlier, why would I ask about medicine when I got some cheaper types available already?"

She gave a very long, drawn out groan, rubbing her temples some. "Jesse McCree, that is my job. It's not fussing, its me trying to treat your pain so that you can get back on the field as soon as possible." This was a frequent point of contention for them, that and smoking, and he just shrugged.

"Welp, the answer is I ain't taking them." He shot her an even look, and she squinted at him, before letting it go with a definitely overdramatic sigh. "I don't really need them, I just need an arm."

"Fine, I'll prescribe you something else. Let me see your current prescription, and I'm more than happy to-." Angela was saying, before the sound came on loud and urgent on her pager, and she pulled it out quickly, reading the screen quickly, eyebrows raising some.

"We're receiving the Polish mission transport, and there were serious injuries that required immediate treatment," She explained and then she'd thrown him a look that told him that she wasn't done with this, before grabbing her gear and running off down the halls in her grandma shoes.

And Jesse knew better than to try to run off, so he sighed, and laid down, watching as the medical wing ran down the hall to the hanger, as he was remembering hazily about the Polish mission briefing.

Soon, though, there was far more than just Angela and other nurses. Jesse sat there as he watched as what felt like the entire fucking base ran their merry asses all the way to the main hanger, and he had to get up when he saw a flash of panicked blue light fly past his door.

He was caught in the crowd, who thankfully were all going the same way, and he couldn't see Gabriel anywhere in them.

Something was wrong, and he just didn't know what. Something was heavy in his gut, and he didn't like it. His gut had helped him survive for this long, but this was a different feeling- of dread, of anxiety, of things best left unsaid.

Angela and the medical team were closest to transport, but Jesse saw Gabriel up by them as well, his back to Jesse, and had to push his way through when he saw the look on Reinhardt's face, and the way Jack was bleeding.

Something was terribly wrong- and he was piecing together that it had gone wrong on the transport. There were body bags and death certificates, and Jesse's throat was dry. This mission had gone horrifically- went into straight FUBAR mode. He had to find Ana- she'd know the details and would happily explain things to him. His gaze went around the hanger, trying to locate the familiar blue hat and sniper rifle of the woman.

Jack was bleeding and on the phone, like he almost always was these days. The phone thing not as much as the blood thing. Normally he'd have a bandage slapped on it by this point by Ana, and she'd be talking to someone else, which Jack was having to do as well, caught between speaking on the phone and speaking to some fuck on the medical team and someone else, someone in an Overwatch uniform that Jesse couldn't fucking think of who they were, but they were replacing Gérard Lacroix.

Something was impossibly wrong. Now he was seeing the people that the medical team were working on the hostages, and looking around as he finally broke through. 4 body bags- four members of Ana's team were absent from the group. Four deaths, but Ana was no where to be seen amongst the members who were alive. Everyone of them seemed absolutely shaken.

Torbjörn was also getting to the center of things. "What the fuck happened?" He asked, not really knowing if he really wanted the answer. The back of his threat tasted like bile. His mouth was dry and he was claustrophobic in the crowd.

The small man looked up with no small degree of horror, and if Jesse was squinting, red eyes. "You didn't hear?" He asked, voice rough.

Jesse had to swallow. "Hear what?"

Torbjörn wasn't even able to answer, before there was a flash of blue light, and Tracer was standing beside them, practically dissociating from time with how much she was shaking.

"Where's the Cap? I heard something went wrong!" She exclaimed, looking to each of them for answers. "Commander Morrison is busy, Angela is working and no ones answered me yet! Where is Ana?!"

It was then that Torbjörn finally found his words.

"Rookie...McCree... No, Lena, and Jesse." He gave them both sorrowful looks. "She didn't make it back at all. Ana's dead."

Something was irreparably wrong, and Jesse felt like vomiting then and there.

This job truly was going to kill them.

He swallowed his bile, as he felt the scarring that was still fading on his face.

He'd known that ever since... well, one of the big things that Jesse had trouble facing. Jesse looked down at his arm, where he was down one on the left side

He'd known that ever since the explosion that had done this to him.

XXXXX

His memories of that day were rather fuzzy, but he remembered the build up to it decent enough.

 _"So they'll be facin' bastions, OR-14's, and eradicators." Jesse said with an easy air into his makeshift communicator. "Four OR-14's- they're the problematic ones, ya know. Human killers and all." He clicked his tongue. "I got my hands on their plan. There's a bomb- well, a few. Killing the OR-14's will disable the main plan just fine. The others aren't smart enough to make the factory blow. But, there's a bit of an issue. There's a smaller bomb that goes off in the case that the OR-14's die."_

 _"McCree," Gabriel said warningly, and Jesse laughed warmly._

 _"That's gonna be my job to deal with." He said easily._

 _"You're not even supposed to be there right now. None of us are, but you are especially at risk. Petras is already up my ass, and Morrison's going to be on mine soon because of this."_

 _"Gabe, this bomb is going to destroy a major compound where omnics live- and based off my limited intel, its right around where the hostages are bein' held." He argued, shaking his head. "And if anyone can disable one, you know its me, boss man."_

 _"Jesse, I don't like how this feels. Somehow, I don't think this will go the way you're saying." Gabriel's voice was insistent, but Jesse rolled his eyes._

 _"I've dealt in this kinda business for this long, Gabe." He reassured smoothly, and he could feel the way that Gabriel's face was giving him a glare over the communicator. "Who knows? As long as Torb's bomb actually works, maybe the public opinion of the Brits will change some," He said semi-jokingly, before cursing loudly as he heard a giant blast go off, dropping fast to the ground._

 _When he wasn't completely destroyed, he realized with a sudden laugh of surprised laughter that Torb's damned monstrosity had worked. "Ya there Gabi?" He called in, before he hopped to his feet and stretched some. "Say somethin now if you think I shouldn't go play hero." He grinned as he said it, fully knowing that Gabe was talking to the others._

 _"Well, if you insist." Jesse amused himself, before recording his message. "I'm going in Commander Reyes. I know these bombs inside and out- let the strike team deal with those tin cans, and then they can rendezvous to collect the hostages. I can get out of the shot if Morrison wants a real photo-op, yeah?"_

 _"Wait- McCree!" Ana's voice came in over the line, stark and clearly confused. "What bomb?"_

 _"There's two. There's a back up thats a bit more rudimentary, run of the mill explosive. Ain't even too fancy with something like a pressure blast- never mind nukes or something real sophisticated." McCree said simply, shrugging as he started walking. "Shouldn't take me more than 10 minutes to disable."_

 _"Agent McCree- This is a direct order!" Gabriel's voice suddenly came in harshly over the communicator, and he just was quick as he made some static in his voice._

 _"Oh, oh no! The, uh, the OR-14's gotta be messin with the communication towers...Agent McCree out!" He hung up right before Gabriel could yell at him to wait for help, and put the communicator in his_

 _Help from the the strike team would come too late. Plus, most of the bots would be fighting them. Jesse knew what he was doing, he used to work in explosives deals- and what kinda explosives dealer would he be if he didn't know how to turn them off?_

 _Getting to the position was easy as pie as compared to everything else at that point- since most of the omnics were going to go deal with Torbjorn and Reinhardt, along with Angie and the rookie that he didn't know too well just yet, on any level more than "you're the literal gorilla's science experiment." He had time though, and so did she now that the gorilla- Winston, Angela had told him- had fixed up her issue with staying in this realm of time space._

 _He whistled as he saw the lil black bomb, taking a good moment to admire the workmanship that had gone into making it, before sitting down with it and taking out his toolkit. Jesse was a guilty whistler when he was working, and this felt like some strange kinda deja-vu, or an uncanny sorta wrapping around to the beginning of his professional career. Though Ana would have had his head if he ever called deadlock his debut in his line of work_.

But here was where things got funny in his head.

He was almost done with it, the big blast disabled, he knew that. Jesse remembered hearing something, turning around and then...nothing.

Piecing the rest of the story together came two or three months after that, after waking up from a coma, a massive scar on his face, all kindsa disturbing looking tubes going into his abdomen, and completely missing his damn arm.

Angela's version had been that he'd accidentally triggered the bomb to go off, or it had been set to detonate and harm the user if they tried to disable it.

Ana's version had been that a stray bullet from an omnic from behind him had set off the bomb, which explained why he remembered hearing something.

Gabe's version started with _I told_ _you so_ , continued with a line about how he had to have walked a bit away from the bomb, because he wasn't killed in the blast, and ended with a kiss right smack in front of Morrison saying that he _did_ say Jack didn't have to know about any assets he'd failed to mention.

And the official story? Spread by crazies online and the PM himself, despite how the public was split on it?

Apparently Jesse McCree had set that damn bomb off purposefully. He was apparently to blame, despite how he'd been damn near killed in it.

"I swear, this damn job is trying to kill us. We're the good guys! We're trying not to let Talon just fuck things up! They're the terrorists- don't they get that?"

No, and they don't well care. They're perfectly happy making their judgements without care for the truth. All Jesse needed to ever do was show his face, and then, he was automatically guilty.

As per usual, Jesse McCree was walking forward and tightening his own noose by trying to fucking help.

He saved 10 lives, and a whole lotta property with what he did, but something happened that he couldn't fucking remember, and he was on trial for it now.

The desert was calling him still, whispering its familiar life and past with him, promising him safety and freedom beneath the expansive blue sky. When he was here, in Gibraltar, there wasn't nowhere to run but water and nowhere to hide from the sun that beat upon them in the unfeeling black metal base and cliffside except into the maws of bureaucracy. The sharks that were waiting to eat him alive and spit out the corpse for the fishes to clean to nothing but bones.

They were all stuck in the middle of the damn ocean, and Jesse ain't never been too good a swimmer.

And now Ana had drowned. The newest victim in a string of em, and the next to come up was Reinhardt, who had just recieved orders he was being benched into forced retirement. The official statement of what happened to Amari was that she was simply too old now. Not even 60 yet, and one of them was dead, and the other was benched, permanently.

Genji's words haunted him still. Cause he was right. Jesse wanted to run as far as his lil feet would take him. Out to the desert, out to where he could run across the horizon and vanish. Where the noose wasn't around his neck and he wasn't treading water as Petras and the rest of the UN decided what to even do with them.

XXXXX

The memorial was held in Cairo, because there was no body to bury, inside the grandly beautiful national Al-Azhar Mosque. Jesse felt suffocated by the blisteringly dry heat of Cairo in November, the sun beating down upon them, and making the glorious marble of the mosque feel like bleach to his soul.

It was a national ordeal- Ana Amari was a hero to all of Egypt, and the president was there to speak on her lengthy history, serving in Egypt, in the Omnic Crisis, and her long and historic position in Overwatch as Second in Command. The mosque was filled wall to wall, and there were tears around, and soft sadness from some members- Angela, still reeling from the loss of Genji, Reinhardt and Torbjörn, next to Fareeha. Fareeha, meanwhile, was openly weeping, leaning against Reinhardt because she was weak at her knees.

She'd been sobbing ever since she'd arrived, refusing to believe what they were telling her, that Ana had died on a mission, that there was no body to find, and she was still occasionally whispering fervent apologizes into the unfeeling air, shaking as she stared at the photo that was blown up and facing Mecca, trying as hard as they could to emulate a proper Islamic funeral, lacking an actual body.

"I didn't see her. I wasn't there. I should have gone to her during Ramadan. I should have been with her for Eid. No, she can't be dead, she was barely in her 50s. She shouldn't have died. She can't be gone."

Fareeha's desperate denial was in stark contrast to the stony acceptance on Jack Morrison's face, giving a speech in very formal FusHa Arabic with the help of a translator, the event being recorded for Egypt and the Arab and Muslim worlds at large. Ana was their hero, their member of Overwatch, who was known only as a good person throughout the world. Throughout all of the drama surrounding Overwatch, she had remained largely unstained here.

Meanwhile, Gabriel was simmering in upset, his expression not unlike storm clouds when the first rumbles of thunder can be heard. His hands were shaking in barely contained furious grief. Even now, he was trying his best to respect what Ana would have wanted. He knew that she loved this job- this was the way any of them had wanted to go out. Jesse knew Gabe was aware of that. Even though she'd prolly been pissed as a rattler when four members of her team died to whoever got her in the end.

And Jesse was beneath those storm clouds, feeling not unlike he'd both been doused in cold water, and had his insides hollowed out. Gabriel's fists gripped hard to his serape, and they all stood there until the speech had finished, until the crowds had left, until the only sound that reached his ears was Fareeha's sobs and the sound of the call to prayer, the number of which escaped him that day.

Reinhardt gently tapped his and Gabriel's shoulder, voice softer than Jesse had ever heard the giant man speak. "It's time for us to go outside, my friends." He seemed so heavy, even as Fareeha and him, along with Jack were directed to the front of the three lines being formed, as prescribed in Ana's will. Her only blood related relative, her closest friend, and someone she felt was like her son. Behind Jesse was Gabriel, then Angela, as Reinhardt stood behind Fareeha and Torbjörn and Tracer were behind Jack.

As they exited the mosque, with more and more people gathering behind them, the Arabic funeral prayers led by the Imam, walking them out into the courtyard.

He looked up at the photo of Ana, and saw reflected in the emptiness of the mosque the hollowness that now consumed him as he felt the tears and grief of his friends and makeshift family falling upon his shoulders like pouring rain.

They walked out to the place where the body was buried, with the funeral prayers being recited, echoing around them, filling the mosque now in the way that Ana's prayers once did when he was 17 and angry at the world and she had been insistent on getting the 5 prayers in and serving him tea hot and sweet, and her coffee black as night, and on Fridays let the qur'an be heard around her quarters from a radio.

He didn't pay attention to how long it lasted, but there was a stone placed for her, with the name ANA AMARI printed in both English and Arabic script, laid in the ground, with nothing to bury, as the prayers slowly came to a conclusion, and slowly, it was just Fareeha and the members of overwatch, the remains of Ana's team with them as well.

All too soon, the sun was too hot, too bright, as Jack Morrison hung his head with his eyes shut tight, almost like he was already wearing the noose prepared for them all. Like he had accepted it to just get out of the fucking water that they were all treading in. Ana was under it, and Jesse wasn't gonna last much longer, it felt like.

His mouth was dry as he wrapped an arm around Gabriel's shoulders, and the two of them left in a sort of daze that felt like walking through the humidity of Cairo, but somehow different, like there was no leaving this, like they would carry it with them, like the ghost of Ana Amari would hang over them all like the wet heat of Egypt. Fareeha's cries became the only thing heard, along with the vague, inaudible echoes of Reinhardt's and Angela's words that somehow, the world would be alright.

"We should leave." Jesse murmured, and Gabriel's head was hung low, unable to argue with his anger and upset so high. "Not just Cairo. You know as well as I do that Petras is out for blood."

"We have to wait until their verdict." Gabriel's voice was soft, and his head went against Jesse's shoulder, making him feel stronger, and yet, like he was being dragged beneath on some basic level. "If we leave before...it will look like we're hiding other things."

"And what if the verdict is somethin' bad?" He asked, and Gabriel didn't answer him, hands gripped to Jesse's shirt quietly.

"We have to stay." He managed eventually, upset letting itself be known in how hard it was for him to get the words out. "Its what she would have wanted. This is her legacy too. Now that Reinhardt is being...demoted, we'll need... all hands on deck."

"I understand that...but still, I think it's best...you know. I don't understand things anymore. I think we need to talk."

Gabriel didn't look up, just nodded with his eyes in front of them, to the streets of Cairo, where they were still seen as heroes after the massive humanitarian crisis that they had half-successfully managed to get a handle on and fix.

"Let's talk." Gabriel echoed absently.

And still, the sun beat down upon them, in the shadow of a great woman, a great leader, and a great friend.

And still, McCree wondered if this would become their legacies too.

He wondered if the funeral for Gabriel would be just as big as Ana's.

If it would be just as big as Jack's.

N' what about a funeral for himself?

Those were the thoughts that felt like water forcing its way into his throat, threatening to suffocate him.


	5. Chapter 5

The talk that they'd agreed on at the funeral, well, it never really came to fruition.

"Hey, Gabi." Jesse's voice and rapping against the door obviously had stirred him from some sort of trance, and honestly? Jesse could entirely relate. Things had been running in a depressive cloud ever since Ana's death and subsequent funeral. One of the heads of the organization, one of the founding members, dying just before the investigation went to trial...well, it was bad for morale, and that was prolly a helluva understatement.

The man looked haunted, eyes still as shocked as they'd been from the day they'd buried his and Jack's best friend without much else than a stone and a national funeral reception.

"Jess, I'm working." Came the immediate dismissive response, brown eyes dropping back down to the paper he'd been reading. A minute later, and Gabe was already listless again, barely even paying attention to Jesse, let alone actually reading the paper. He'd stayed put, of course, knowing how this act of theirs went. Gabriel had seemed so strange lately, but he had trouble putting it down as to what.

He walked in, humming as he put his hand over Gabriel's. "Babe, you've been staring at the same piece of paper for God knows how long." He pointed out as politely as he could, given the shit eating grin on his face.

Gabriel looked up again, and was caught dumbly in a sudden kiss from Jesse, the man pausing before sinking into the kiss easily. "Jess," He mumbled, far more alive sounding and less robot-like.

"Yeesssir?" He drawled the response playfully, making him put down the paper as Gabriel scoffed, shaking his head in warm amusement, a smile playing at the edge of his lips.

"Jess, don't even pull that with me." He scoffed after a , leaning up and kissing him again. "I highly doubt you've _ever_ actually looked at me with any type of authority."

"And ain't you glad for that?" Jesse asked with a raised brow, taking Gabriel's hand into his own, pulling him up out of his seat and taking him out of his office, planning on giving him a real break.

"I am, Jess." Gabriel allowed himself to go along with it. "You've always been so fiercely you. Even though you were only 17, I thought you were at least 21." He held firmly to Jesse's hand as the two of them walked into the dinner Jesse had made for them.

A 6 month anniversary dinner. Because, good lord in heaven, he was becoming a damn sap, dreaming of things that he was afraid once that he aint ever gonna have. Of things he still feared he wouldn't get to keep.

He turned on the sappy playlist of classic rock, and Gabriel laughed at him some. "Jesse, Jess, have you been researching me? I love the Eagles."

Jesse smirked at that, because he wasn't gonna say that yes, he had, since he was so in love and had just wanted to make Gabriel happy. Things around base had been tense, and Gabriel seemed so stressed of late.

And Jesse wanted to tell him how he felt. There was the known known- he knew he loved Gabriel. But he wanted the answer to the known unknown. Did Gabriel love him back?

He'd pulled out all the stops for this, and Gabriel looked happy as he could be, in this scenario. He'd cooked so much food for them both, got out the nice wine instead of his usual bourbon without ice, since that was Gabe's favorite. Excusing the jokes about how rich he'd been back in Southern California, Jesse had to admit that the expensive stuff was nice.

"I wish I'd known you when I was younger." Gabriel admitted softly as they sat there, quiet and not acknowledging things going on that were beyond them. "I wish I'd been closer to you in age. Hell, wish I met you before I met Jack, n' I hope you don't mind coming second in the grand scheme of things, because, well, I really do think we could have been...something extraordinary."

Jesse only hummed in mild affirmation, afraid to admit to Gabriel how he didn't really feel the same.

Not because he didn't think they could have had something great in that hypothetical universe where Gabriel was 33 instead of 43, but rather, he'd come to think that, well, they _were_ something great, at present. This was more than Jesse ever thought he could possibly have.

Weren't they?

Something rooted itself in his chest, around his fragile, damned _loving_ heart, and whispered something nefarious that gripped him and settled right in, like it had finally found its nest once more, burrowed into him like a parasite that he'd long accepted was apart of him.

 _You're always gonna be second place to him, Jesse McCree._

He was always gonna be second best to Jack Morrison. Love was best left to people like him and Gabe.

 _We're not the kind of people who are meant for that._

The easy mood dissolved, just like that, and it felt like he'd been knocked into a daze. Or maybe out of a delusion, and he was still waking up from whatever fucking dream he'd been caught in, one where he could be something special to Gabriel without some sort of modifier or comparison to Jack Morrison. Love wasn't meant for him, now was it?

Did Gabriel love him the way that Jesse loved Gabriel?

He couldn't find the air in his chest to ask the question, and so Gabriel kissed him softly goodnight, thanking him for the dinner.

"It was very thoughtful of you- I've not been eating much," he admitted, and Jesse could only nod dumbly, giving him his trademarked smile in return, the smile easier to show than the aching in his chest and the way his being longed for something more. "These pills take it right out of me- I know I should eat with em, but they always make me sick…" He took two right there, and then stood up, stretching some.

He wanted more. It was just within reach, and yet, completely outside of it as Gabriel Reyes left the room with a wave of his hand and a warm, grateful smile, returning to his work. Did he know? Did Jesse want to tell him? Did Gabriel know of how his damned loving heart ached when there wasn't any acknowledgement for what they had reached.

Jesse only poured himself another glass of bourbon, preparing his cleanup from a night that he'd wanted to be so much more.

XXXXX

The first cold wave came to Zurich the day that Reinhardt was finally told it was time to clear house. They'd long since left Gibraltar, after Ana's funeral. It would be here that the trials would be held. It was here that Overwatch would meet its fate. Its cradle and its demise, Jesse thought privately, though some folks still held out hope for the fairness in the world, in the system.

He wasn't ever one to be considered an optimist, though.

And his pessimism rung true, 'cause things only got worse from there.

"I quit!" Torbjörn had shouted at the top of his lungs when Petras had come in asking Reinhardt to hurry it up, because they need to move in the new Lieutenant. "We do _everything_ we were asked for 20 odd years, and this is how you repay us?" He said, absolutely disgusted. "We led the world to peace, and you use the death of one of our leaders, one of our closest friends to get your foot further up our asses?" He shook his head. "I won't stand for it." He turned foot, and Reinhardt simply stared after him, wanting to say something, but being unable to.

Jesse was just a fly on the wall, feeling out of place with how much bustling was going on that he couldn't be apart of. Angela had Torbjörn making the arm, so he had no idea _how_ he'd get involved now that he was leaving.

But hey, bein' a fly on the wall was somethin' he'd always been good at. It's what let him get so close to Gabriel Reyes to begin with. Back when he was in the business of shooting him, that was. But maybe it wasn't so far off the mark for how he got close to him in this sense either.

Especially, the bitter part of him said, if he was always just gonna be the one in the wings that comes out when Gabriel Reyes' main romantic interest leaves center stage. But, he sighed, releasing it because the bitter part of him had a mean streak a mile wide. There was a lot going on, and in the grand scheme of things, it wasn't nothin' but a thing. Gabe had a lot going on- and he could just be thinking that Jesse was acting how Jesse normally did. He wasn't one for soft things, because _he wasn't made for loving_.

He walked out of that situation, head and heart heavy. It was like watching the old guard fall. Even though it was necessary sometimes, doesn't mean that it was hard watchin' it, especially considering how much good they'd done for him.

Ana would be appalled, furious, and she'd have Petras on the phone, yellin' his ear off for ageism in the workplace. Reinhardt was far from senile, Petras was just using this public benching as a way to discredit Jack and make it seem like his leadership was associated with incompetence and a lovely dash of nepotism.

But Ana was dead, Jesse remembered blandly. Her daughter had been in a few days ago to clean out her office, the girl working in a haze not too unlike the one that had settled over the base- over Overwatch, that was.

Blackwatch, well, Jesse didn't quite know what was going on there.

There was a haze, that was certain, but it left a bad taste in his mouth. The rumblings started with one person blaming Ana's death on Jack Morrison.

 _We'd not have enough time, we didn't have all of the intel we needed_ , _the Captain was the only reliable go between_ , and _the UN is putting us on trial for misconduct?_

What had started as a single boom of thunder had turned into a roiling storm, and it was terrifying watching it from within the ocean as he was, as high tide turned into a full blown hurricane.

And the worst thing of it all was that Gabriel Reyes was in the fucking eye of the storm. Somehow able to look completely calm even as he was encircled and leading the worst of it. This place was their home, and he was able to turn his back against it so easily?

Jesse had fought for this place, had turned around 'cause of it, 'cause of Ana and _Gabe_ and even though his own thoughts told him to shut up and follow because what he had with Gabriel was just better than nothing, doesn't mean that Ana's own familiar voice didn't ring through, telling him that he deserved something that was far better than nothing. And his traitorous heart ached, because for a moment it thought it could have that.

It reached a new level when the verdict finally was heard. Just as he'd thought, the trial itself never saw the light of day, and he was never put on the stand, nor was anyone else. The UN run tribunal had been his judge and jury, and now, he was certain it would be his executioner. They had sentenced him to life without parole, far, far away from the desert he was integrally apart of.

"It's not right, Jesse was only doing what was right, he saved lives! Overwatch wouldn't have acted on that in time, and they're saying Jesse, the one who acted, is at fault?"

Jesse knew what the others were talking about. He'd joined a gang at 13, he knew how to listen when it was important to keep your wits about you. Knew when to listen when the winds were changing.

 _Where will you be when all this goes wrong, Jesse McCree?_

 _I won't be anywhere when things go wrong, 'cause things won't go wrong._

He'd been so confident when he said that, and yet things were wronger than ever before. Jesse could try again, say that he'd follow Reyes anywhere 'cause there wasn't no way that he'd take em down the road to hell.

But that dog ain't gonna hunt. Try as he might, the words got stuck in his throat.

Where was Ana when you needed her?

"This is Overwatch's fault!" Someone finally announced, and Jesse felt something like dread building up in his stomach. It was madness. How on earth were they just…going with it.

"And Overwatch will _pay_." Gabriel growled, eyes deep and dark and furious and Blackwatch made noises of agreement, the din coming down to the sound of rolling thunder in the distance.

That was what had surprised him the most. Gabriel coming out with that sort of thinking? Jesse was only able to stare dumbly as Gabriel rallied more support, quietly with how he commanded the room, eyes maddened and expression impassioned.

"This was _Morrison's_ fault. And he's content to shift the blame onto us." Gabriel continued, getting more approving murmurs shifting through the group. "He's content to let us take the risks and then leave us to die."

There was more unification as they grouped tighter, agreeing and the anger was turning into something tangible in the air. Something that could be molded into a weapon.

It was like a sudden solar eclipse. The moon passed in front of the sun, and it turned everything red. Later, Jesse would even think that Gabe's eyes were glowing red.

Later, in their bedroom, Gabriel was grabbing a few things, seeming like something had crawled beneath his skin and wasn't coming out. He seemed tense, on edge, and Jesse had to put a hand on his shoulder. An attempt to stop him. The only one he could make.

"Gabriel." Jesse said, voice strained. "You can't be serious."

"I'm completely serious, Jesse." He turned on him, looking at Jesse almost like he'd forgotten he was in the room. His expression was that of stranger, no longer the familiar warmth and love he'd come to have known. Something in Jesse's stomach dropped, searching hardened brown eyes for something, and finding nothing.

Almost like it wasn't even really Gabriel in there at all.

"Something's wrong." Jesse gripped him tighter. He felt off as well, but nothin' like how Gabriel was right now. This felt unreal. "This isn't like you. Gabriel, what the hell? We _are_ Overwatch. I know Morrison's a dick, but, you can't be serious. We're on the same fucking team."

Jesse felt disconnected from his body, as Gabriel shoved his hand away, his warm brown eyes that reminded him of comforting earth of home suddenly black and devoid of any sort of familiarity, devoid of kindness.

"Ingrate. Don't you know what everyone's done for you? What _I've_ done for you?" Gabriel pushed against him. "This is their fault, and I've done everything I can, and you still defend them. You, who have sat on your ass and himmed and hawed about not knowing what to do. About _leaving_. Talking with Amari all the time, scheming behind our backs." His words were paranoid, madness, and they send something awful down Jesse's spine.

Devoid of Gabriel himself.

"Traitor." He spat, anyway, unknowing of what he was doing to Jesse. "Should have known you would be one. You were so quick to turn on your bedfellows with Deadlock. Ingrate. I'm doing this for you, and you're telling me that we shouldn't?"

A laugh, and the knot in Jesse's stomach had hardened into a stone, anger rising in his own chest, that was dragged further up by heartbreak.

"Were you going to say we should run away together?" Gabriel taunted, black eyes cruel. "Ridiculous. Something out of a children's fantasy. I wanted you because I thought you were beyond thinking of things like _love_."

Jesse shoved him away then, unwilling to take it, his face hot, his throat constricted. Though he tried to make his expression hard, he felt vulnerable. He refused to cry.

Something broke there, in the atmosphere, and something changed as Jesse glowered at Gabriel, and he swallowed thickly.

"You thought wrong." Was all he justified himself with. "Good night, Gabriel. Get out of my room."

Gabriel's eyes betrayed sudden surprised. Something changed in his expression. Something like confusion. Hurt? No, couldn't be. Jesse just felt his misery on him, thick and heavy like cream he'd smothered onto the scar he'd gotten in a vain attempt at being a hero.

"Jess," Gabriel tried, his voice different, but if he thought Jesse would take it now, after what he'd just _said_ , he thought wrong again.

"Out." His response was clipped, just short of anger.

Gabriel took his water bottle off the table, and took two pills, seeming haunted by something, but he listened to Jesse regardless.

Jesse turned off the lights, and lay down in sudden, overwhelming exhaustion.

He surrendered to sleep.

XXXXX

" _Eid mubarak, Jesse McCree." Ana told him with a kind smile that felt sickly after living so long with only the salt of sweat and tears on him._

" _I already said I don't wanna participate in this." He muttered, surly, before the woman rolled her eyes at him, and placed a sum of money into his hands, making him stare wide eyed at it, clearly confused. "A, and I don't need no hand outs," He spat out, his temper flaring some, before she laughed lightly._

" _It's not a handout, its a gift. You fasted with me all month, Jesse. You're what, 16?" She asked, side eying him, before he blustered, embarrassed._

" _I'm 17, thank you very much!" He exclaimed, and she smirked in triumph, making Jesse realize he'd finally been outplayed._

 _She didn't comment on it, though, and instead just nodded. "See, Angela's visiting as well- and she doesn't quite enjoy spending time with Fareeha as I thought she would. However, I promised her that she'd be able to go out to the amusement park like she did at home. If we were in Cairo, I would have no trouble letting her go alone, but we're in Switzerland, not Egypt." She looked at him with a smile. "So please, take her? Have fun yourself, while you're at it. 17 is too young to be so serious, but I understand circumstances making things…hard." She allowed, nodding._

 _In the real world, Jesse knew it woulda taken a lot more time to arrive here, but ever since his unofficial nap and start of his vacation, he'd gotten used to the way that time tended to move in dreams._

 _He'd felt Fareeha's hand gripped tight onto his own, and the strange urge and sudden awareness he was a bit out of his depth here, "Lets go explore here!" She tugged on his arm, and Jesse had only followed, allowing his way into the room._

 _The excitable twelve year old had run on ahead of him, and Jesse walked through the darkened rooms of the house of mirrors quietly._

 _This attraction was old, as was he, considering most of the excited festival-goers were around Fareeha's age or younger. He wasn't gonna rush, confident that Fareeha would wait if she got too far ahead of him. The two had hit it off well, and he hated to admit to himself that Ana was right, and that it was nice to take the day to himself and act his age, or almost there._

 _His footsteps creaked loudly against the old wood, and in the mirror in front of him, he saw a teenager, with short hair and a hat that was still a bit too big for him, that needed to be held against his head in the wind._

 _The hat flew off, and he turned sideways to see himself in the doubled mirrors._

 _A man stood proud in the first, dressed in all black, two human arms and seeming perfectly in control of things._

 _The second was thinned out, with eye bags the color of his shadows in the first mirror, his arm gone and the stitches on his face visible still._

 _"You miscalculated, and you paid the price for it." Came his own voice, harsh and cracking from dehydration, the man staring back at him through the mirrors. The first one was crying, as McCree turned to the side, and he was suddenly prone on the floor, breathing hard, gargling in his own blood, staring up at the hospital garb and familiar setting of the medbay. "You thought you could be something you weren't. Thought you could have things you didn't deserve."_

 _"Jesse, Jesse!" Gabriel's voice came through, breaking those thoughts as he cried, staring down at where Jesse was staring up at white ceiling and Angela was shouting for Gabriel to get out if he wasn't going to help, the woman not even having changed from her combat uniform. Gabriel's large hand, so strong and so commanding now, normally, so gentle and tender against him._

 _"Don't leave me Jesse." He begged. "I need you."_

 _Jesse's eyes had closed anyway, and the scene changed._

 _Suddenly he was sitting in a dunk tank, holding the seat as his feet dangled upon dark water. On the outside, Fareeha was laughing in joy, and he was back at the carnival._

 _"Watch Jesse! I'll do it in one shot!" She announced proudly. "My mom's the best in the world, I gotta have learned somethin from her!"_

 _"Sure you have." Jesse had said back, playful, going along with her, feeling fairly confident that he'd be dry by the end of this._

 _He'd been looking around, taking in the easy atmosphere, and he'd been so confident. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something, heard something, and he'd turned around to see what it was, the scene suddenly in the dark ally of London under siege, and he'd barely had a moment to see her._

 _A pale skinned woman with her black hair up in a ponytail, dressed in a crop top and capris, holding up a sniper rifle, aiming it not at him, but rather at the, at the-._

 _She took the shot, and McCree shouted in surprise as he'd been suddenly knocked out of his seat, off his feet and the world had suddenly changed around him. The water swirled around him, powerful and filling his lungs with water, salt filled as Gabriel held him under, dragging him to the depths._

 _ **Don't leave me**_ _, the Gabriel in the water ordered up at him, as the number of corpses grew around them, Ana's own sinking past them both. Jesse wasn't a good swimmer, and yet, Gabriel was clinging to him, his beautiful wings drenched with blood, dragging them both down._

 _Jesse was trying his best to resurface. Above him, the woman was distorted by the waters surface, her pale skin and masked face staring down at him, the glare of sunlight- the fires still burning because of the bomb, but it wasn't as big as it should have been, Jesse'd disabled most of it._

 _"Target injured." Her voice was strangely familiar, hitting the uncanny valley as he choked and coughed on his own blood. "Proceed with elimination?"_

 _"Rodger. Clearing the area. His fellow agents will discover him soon enough." The woman had said to him, her hand gripping his cheeks as he struggled to get air into his lungs. He'd broken ribs, his left eye was straight up seeing black and blood. And she tsked softly._

 _"Sweet dreams, McCree. Be lucky that you are still useful to us."_

 _She let him go, and Jesse was falling again, the surface completely out of reach as Gabriel attached himself to Jesse, and tried to climb him to reach the surface, desperate to breath again._

 _His eyes were maddened, expression changing into anger and hatred and snarling evil as he reached up for the surface, his wings staining it all so red that it was just black._

 _"_ _ **Overwatch will pay**_ _." Gabriel announced with such fervent belief, and had rallied the troops to his side, everyone caught up in sudden fury, that was palpable in the crowd of them._

 _And Jesse was still drowning, as Gabriel used him as a stand._

 _His Pa reading him poetry, 'cause his Ma had loved it back in the days when she was around. "You will never be more wrong than the first time you say "I love you." You will mean it, sure, but you'll still be lying."_

 _He couldn't breath. Couldn't see. Couldn't move forward. He was bein' shoved beneath with Gabriel pushing him further and further beneath. Could barely see the surface._

 _The known known- he knew he loved Reyes. Or was that as known as he thought it was. Something he thought he knew, that he didn't have a clue about? He wasn't able to trust what he thought he knew anymore, not in the face of so many unknowns._

 _Meanwhile, the ultimate unknown stood before him, death, opening its arms to him._

 _A sparrow flew over the surface of the ocean, along with the dove for peace, as the clock went tick tick tick and his Pa closed the book, the title lifting out of its paper imprisonment and swirling around him with the fact his days, his freedom were numbered. His future, that his Pa, oh lord his Pa who is soaked in blood of Jesse's own mistakes, his Pa had said would be so bright was closing so quickly in front of him, and Jesse wasn't ready yet._

 _He wasn't ready to die._

 _Jesse suddenly pushed away, unwilling to follow Reyes to hell, kicking to the surface and reaching for the light._

And he woke up gasping for breath, his entire body electrified, anxiety crawled up his spine and down his limbs with the the sudden vicious instinct to _move._ He had to leave. He couldn't stay here.

His Pa, his damn loving Pa who had told him that he'd been made for great things had always told him to follow his instincts. He ripped off his uniform. Gabriel wasn't even in his room, probably in his office, even though it was 3 am and there was nowhere to be. He threw the clothes down on the floor, unable to even look at it.

His instincts were screaming at him now. Gabriel wasn't gonna listen to him. Gabriel was here until he died, and god, Jesse wasn't ready to die.

He tossed on the red serape over his shoulders, a forgotten birthday gift from Gabriel's mother many, many years ago, and he put on the first pair of civilian clothes he could.

And then he'd torn into the night like a bandit, running from his problems all over again. He wasn't willing to be caught in this. Not now. Not here.

If he tried, he could imagine the building shaking as Gabriel and Blackwatch prepared to rock its very foundations.

XXXXX

And…that was how he'd wound up here, holed up in a shitty hotel just north of nowhere.

By now, so much more had changed, and his nightmares were only tempered by alcohol.

He took another sip of bourbon as he settled back on down onto his bed. The fan hadn't started back up, and it was hot as shit in the room, but that was fine. It was all fine.

His eyes looked to the television, hardly able to read the words on them before he had to turn it off. So much for facing all his problems, _but baby steps are typically the way to go_ , Ana's chastising voice haunted him still.

He ran his hand through his hair, entertaining the thought of a shower for a heartbeat before he put his hat on his head, sighing absently as he grabbed the cream for his scar and threw it into his bag as well, before wrapping the red serape he'd gotten as a gift around his shoulders. It was a touch chilly where he was headed, a bit further north than where he really wanted to be, but he was meeting up with some familiar faces at least.

...it wasn't all fine, and baby steps were the way to go.

The sky outside was still a deep dark blue, not unlike the bottom of the ocean, he supposed. He'd spent so much time drowning by now he hardly knew the difference between open sky and crushing depths.

Between the place that had made itself his home, and the one who he'd painstakingly crafted into one. Between his life before, and after, Gabriel, and the one with him.

It wasn't too cold, but it was still early December. The first big snow hadn't hit yet.

He looked at his messenger, and turned it on, briefly, morbidly curious.

5 MISSED CALLS

TWO UNREAD MESSAGES FROM: ANGELA ZIEGLER

He didn't even try to look at the calls. They were all most likely from Angela, the woman notoriously bad at never leaving voicemails.

Gabriel hadn't called him, of that he was certain at this point.

"Jesse McCree. I don't know where you are, but I feel obligated to say that you gave me my first gray hair."

He smirked, half debating on replying he'd just found his own today, not the week ago when she'd sent that. So much for it being smoking that had done it to him. But then he sobered at the last message, once again reminded of his...choice.

"Stay safe. I think I have an idea of why you left, now."

To the empty air, he sighed as he stood there, pondering the words that were presented to him. He turned off his comm again, before stuffing it back into his bag, ignoring the guilt and ignoring the weight of his decision.

He knew why he had left, and while he was grateful that he had when he did, that didn't mean he was proud, or that he was gonna say I told you so while dancing on dead men's graves.

His heart ached, and Jesse rubbed his face some for even daring to think of that.

 _Baby steps_.

After a bit of cleaning up his meager belongings from the motel, and throwing away all his emptied bottles of bourbon, he left with a hundred euros on the counter along with his key, not wanting to deal with taking the time to check out properly. Didn't want to get any people who weren't wrapped up with this in trouble.

 _Ingrate_ , the voice ground in the back of his head, making Jesse choke on sudden grief. _Don't you know what everyone's done for you? What_ _ **I've**_ _done for you?_

Yes, Jesse knew full well. And he still backed out now. He might be ungrateful to the staff for not checking out like he should, but he gave them as much as he owed in tips. All he'd need to do now is show his damn face and the guilt would be placed upon his shoulders all over again. Like always.

 _Ingrate_. The voice rang in his ears. _Traitor_. It threatened to drown him with the power of it, the almost burning force like an angel or God above had decided to smite him.

But Jesse hadn't been the one to burn, had he?

 _Baby steps_.

No, he'd been chewed up and spat out by the ocean onto familiar sand once more, and he'd been given a chance to run into the familiar, if unknown territory of wanted man. The role wasn't what he had wanted, but it was always what he'd been. He'd been dreaming of things he couldn't have, just as he had when he was 17 or 18 years old and smoking cigarettes and masturbating to the thought of his superior officer.

He'd indulged in the daydream long enough. The reality of the matter was that he'd survived. Hindsight is 20/20, and Gabriel's stupid fucking line came back as he thought through what had fucking happened.

He knew that he knew he loved Gabriel.

The known unknown had been answered to, resoundingly with this: Gabriel didn't love him back.

But in history, the thing that usually gives us all the most trouble are the unknown unknowns.

Of course they would, because they couldn't even be planned for. If you don't know that you're that fucking out of you're depth, how on earth can you make back up plans? Or even just know why things are fucking up that badly.

It wasn't quite snowing, but it was still goddamned cold. He took a sip of burning alcohol to help warm him up in the short time he'd be outside.

Soon enough, he found himself on a familiar doorstep, one that felt like better times.

He knocked.

Torbjörn answered the door, his blue eyes hard as he stared at Jesse.

And really, Jesse wasn't in the mood. He sighed. "Lookie, you could gimme a hard time about defecting, but I did what I could, and iffin' you call me out, well, then you'd be a hypocrite, wouldn't you?" Jesse accused, before he softened. "I'm just...there's a lot going. I ain't Reyes' pawn. Surely, after the news going on about what happened, you know that."

Torbjörn softened, some, before he looked at Jesse with still vaguely accusing eyes. "Why didn't you come back when it was all done?"

"Did you hear the verdict?" Jesse asked, tiredly. "They convicted me of terrorism. I have a bounty on my head. Never mind after this stunt Reyes pulled. He flew off the deep end at the end." He admitted quietly, and Torbjörn put a hand on his arm.

"I understand you, lad." He muttered, "I have since...the news came out, but I don't want to believe that..."

"I didn't want to believe it either. I don't know the details...he turned on me, right before I left." Jesse admitted. "All I knew was that Blackwatch was planning something. Something I wanted no part of, and I tried to...well, dissuade him. It wasn't gonna be justice, I don't know what they were even going for...but he cast me out." Jesse looked down. "...and I wouldn't be here if you didn't have somethin' I needed, Torb. I don't wanna face it any more than you do. Prolly less."

"Your prosthetics." Torbjörn realized, gruffly, after a moment longer of thinking on that, leaving behind the subject altogether, out of mutual respect for their shared grief. "...That's why you're here, then?"

Jesse nodded. "I gotta vanish after they're on." He softly admitted. "I ain't gonna put family in danger Torb. No one can know where I am. Angela woulda hid me, I know she woulda, but I ain't gonna do that to her, or any of y'all." He shrugged. "I've done cash only transactions, and lord knows that this getup is keeping me on the downlow by being so...incredibly out of place." He allowed with a smile.

Torbjörn gave him another long onceover, before he sighed, letting him have it. "Fine, I'll get it out and attach it. Stay put, my wife's with the baby, the other kids are likely upstairs, asleep- I'd prefer you not wake them."

"Thanks a million, Torby." Jesse grinned wider, getting settled against the wall. "I'll behave. Ana trained me well, promise."

Torbjörn didn't respond at that, but he did look notably softer as he looked back at her name.

He stared out the window, into the late night sky, into the pitch blackness.

Into the unknown unknown.

Things he didn't yet know, that he didn't know.

But the one that had given him so much trouble, now that he was looking back?

How fast Gabriel Reyes could fall so far. He'd always seemed like an angel, flying above, capable of anything as long as he wasn't dragged down into the swath of blue beneath him. The moment that he was, well, those massive wings belonging to his angel had so quickly absorbed the water, and though he had grappled with Jesse, struggled to stay above the water, there was only so much that Jesse, crippled, and never really all too good a swimmer, could do.

They had both drowned.

One had been tossed upon foreign shores, because he had kicked away the struggling hands, refusing to be pushed beneath the storming surface.

And those glorious wings, once capable of flying over it all, flying with Jesse, well, they'd been drenched with the weight of his sins. And he'd been dragged far beneath, to where Jesse ain't ever gonna see him again.

And he'd died, alone, or with Jack. That type of soft thing that would make sense, given it all. They had been meant for each other, in life, and now after death. Jesse'd only been chosen because Gabe had thought he wouldn't believe in things like love.

Jesse finally crumpled, no one to be strong for, no need to struggle to keep his head up and he sobbed, because, oh god, Gabriel was _dead_. Had he thought of Jesse, when it happened, thought of Jesse saying that their job was gonna kill em both, thought of how Jesse ran, of the _ingrate_ who vanished into the night because he couldn't face the consequences of his own actions. Something had been wrong, and he shoulda run sooner, should have taken him with him. Should have stopped Gabriel before he went down that point of no return or at least told him how he felt before he was gone.

There wasn't baby steps for that. There wasn't stairs leading into deeper waters. It was a drop off, and Jesse was drowning all over again, no longer in the storm, but this time in his own sorrow, because, good Lord above in heaven. Jesse had run, damn himself to be what he'd always been, damning Gabriel to _death_.

Did Gabriel think of him before he'd died? Had he hated him? Begrudged him? Missed him?

And Jesse really wasn't the kinda person made for fairytale things like _love_. That would be left to Jack and Gabe, the comrades in arms, the lovers and the friends who had led Overwatch together, and had killed it together, and had gone down with it, like two captains slamming straight into one another, both choosing simultaneously to go down with their cause, with their mission, with their ship. They'd gone down fighting, like two objects on a course destined to end in a fiery explosion- which Jesse supposed that it had.

At some point, Torbjörn came out with the arm, with the familiar Deadlock marking engraved into the cool metal, that quickly heated up as Torbjörn worked mechanical magic and weaved the machinery into flesh and nerve.

While he worked at Angela's basic work, fixing up the tubes and giving him a special top over it. He wouldn't let her hard work go to waste now, and ensured that Jesse's fucked up chest, missing a few ribs now, would keep working and plugging along like it always did.

He furled and unfurled the hand once it was all said n' done, his oceans all dried up. Jesse was a bein' of the sand and the desert and the open horizon. And Gabe was made of better things, until there was nothin more that Gabe could give, and then he'd fallen like Lucifer before him- straight to the flames of hell.

Jesse McCree wasn't made for wishing for things he couldn't have. But there was one thing he was always damn good at, and it was shooting, and killing, and doing what people thought was impossible. He wasn't for soft emotions and prolonged tears. It was somethin' bound to happen, he reminded himself. He wasn't meant for things like someone loving him.

After a brief goodbye, where Torbjörn told him just not to get caught, Jesse left. He'd be fine. Always had a knack for surviving. And he'd not give up just yet on wanting better.

After all- Justice ain't gonna dispense itself.


End file.
